


Symmetry

by gqgqqt



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Developing Relationship, M/M, Mild Kink, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Avengers (2012), Slow Build, Slow Romance, Trauma Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-09 11:50:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18916414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gqgqqt/pseuds/gqgqqt
Summary: Clint may be a mess, but maybe Phil's just a little off-center, too.[noncon archive warning is for flashbacks to an incident with an OMC in Clint's backstory, all Clint/Phil material is 100% consensual.][2019 reupload from 2012]





	Symmetry

**Author's Note:**

> hey it's back. no the other NSL stuff isn't going up, the links on ye olde tumble for those should still be active, it's fine. this one i did want to put back up though. it stands on its own.
> 
> one thing: i'm not 1000% sure if this was the final final final final final draft with all corrections etc and honestly that's... fine? hmu if any bizarre issues or just a sentence yeehawing out to nowhere but the once-over looks good enough
> 
> REGARDING THE TW/CWS ON THIS FIC, those feeling chill from the archive warnings and wanting to just forge ahead, go forth. all others (hello my people) please hit up the End Notes for as concise but helpful a TW list as i could put together from available materials. all right that's it from me

There are whispers in the halls of SHIELD.

Every few months, new blood comes to SHIELD, each of them hopeful and looking for a supervisory agent, and every time they step into a quiet enough space, an established junior agent will pull them aside and say:

Whatever you do, don’t sign on with Phil Coulson.

It’s not that he’s a hard-ass, they tell the new agents when they corner them with their coffee in the breakroom, you get used to that after being around him a while.

It’s not that he’s serious about paperwork, they say when the new agents are locked into schedules on the firing range, you learn how to do that just fine after a couple weeks.

It’s not even the lack of humor, they add when the new agents are fresh from their briefings and too tired to avoid the warnings, you just learn not to make jokes in front of him.

And when the new agents don’t listen, they stop cornering them with words and push them into walls or pull them into closets, and they tell them in serious tones that it’s not about Coulson at all.

It’s the fact that a year ago, the last time Coulson had junior agents, all it took was one field op gone wrong, and the whole group of them were slaughtered so fucking horribly they could barely even show the bodies to the families, and the guy was back to work in a week like nothing ever happened.

The new agents swallow nervously and nod. The juniors walk away, message delivered. No one ever requests Coulson as their supervisory agent, and in a year, the new agents will be giving the same story to the next set of faces they don’t recognize, because like hell are they losing their peers to something like that.

People keep whispering.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM: pcoulson@mail.shld  
TO: jfacchino@mail.shld  
SUBJ: Denial of Request for Supervision  
DATE: 2/26/2002 8:25 AM

ATTACHMENTS: SREQ248693.pdf, SREQ578432.pdf, SREQ9256...(cont.)

Dr. Facchino,

I understand Human Resources has good intentions in sending me the list of new recruits every few months, but I haven’t reversed my position on the issue. Attached are the scanned forms redirecting the latest requests to other supervisory agents.

I have no objection to overseeing the referral of junior and training agents to the most suitable senior personnel for their personal growth, as I have done with these and will gladly do in the future. However, I will no longer be serving in a supervisory or mentoring capacity in on-site matters, nor will I supervise field teams if there are other supervisory personnel available.

Thank you for your time.

\- P. Coulson

  
  


_Prologue_

  
  


The first time Phil notices anything unusual about Agent Barton, it's their second assignment together, and he's pulling Barton out of a lake, listening to distant gunfire. The bridge they jumped from wasn't high, but the surface tension didn't do them any favors, and Barton hasn't opened his eyes since they hit.

Phil drags him up onto the bank, checking him over for any blood in case a bullet caught him before the jump. He's opened the vest and he's got his fingers under Barton's shirt, about to push it up, when Barton opens his eyes, gasps.

"Oh, good," Phil is saying, just as Barton twists sharply away from his hand. He jerks upright and falls back again, grasping at roots and kicking at the ground to push himself away from Phil. "Hey, easy, _easy_. We made it to the north shore." Barton's eyes are wide, unfocused, flicking around at nothing in particular; he's not hearing Phil.

Phil presses his mouth in a line and sighs, trying to keep calm to balance the panic. This looks like dissociation, but Phil's file on Barton's life before SHIELD is far from complete; it could be from anything.

He looks over his shoulder at the distant line of the bridge, listens for any more gunfire. They can't spare long here, but Barton is Phil's responsibility, and his skills are worth a little extra maintenance. And at least Barton is panicking quietly, Phil figures.

Phil pads across the leaf-strewn ground to kneel where Barton's escape crawl stopped. He's breathing unevenly, half-curled against the base of a tree.

"Barton, listen to my voice," Phil says slowly. Barton stares straight ahead. "You're on assignment with SHIELD in Adelaide. It's February 4th. It's Sunday." He pauses, hoping Barton will look up. Phil notices he's shivering, and hopes it's the water. "What day is it, Barton?" he asks, softer.

"February 4th," says Barton. "February 4th." He blinks through Phil, leaning warily away from him. Then, some of the focus comes back to his eyes. "February 4th," he says again, and then: "Adelaide. Australia, the... the Bernard case." The tightness in his jaw eases, and he frowns after a moment. "Did we jump off a bridge?"

"Welcome back," Phil says, smiling wryly.

He stands, holding out a hand to Barton to help him up. Barton's hand rises slightly from the ground, but falls again, curling into a fist against the leaves; he rolls over to get his knees under him and gets up on his own. Turned away from Phil, he re-fastens his vest.

Phil is about to ask what that was about, but he's distracted by the bullet passing very close to his leg and then distracted by running, and Barton is back to making impossible shots and smirking like nothing ever happened.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The news spreads like wildfire when Coulson is taken off standard senior agent rotation. Rumor has it he’ll be handling smaller, more covert operations with a specialist SHIELD recently brought on. Few people actually cross paths with him, but the rumors—and the stories of the lost junior agents and the Coulson Curse—are reaching mythical levels, and so Coulson’s mysterious new work partner becomes his own kind of legend.

It takes a few months, but SHIELD’s lower-security gossip pool starts to hear about the specialist. There are stories about his aim already circulating among the agents who practically live on the firing range, and all they know about him is, he comes in and bull’s-eyes the hell out of everything without talking to anyone. _Barton_ , they scoff.

On the other hand, the Medical staff come to the rumor mill breathless and wide eyed over the charming, laid-back, mouthy long range specialist who keeps showing up in the infirmary with minor hand injuries. _Barton_ , they sigh.

All anyone seems to know is that the guy is some kind of phenomenon with his aim, that he’s only ever worked with Coulson in his first year with SHIELD, and that apparently, he’s immune to the Coulson Curse, just as invincible and untouchable as Coulson himself.

And then there’s Oklahoma.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phil hasn’t been to Tulsa since he was a kid, he thinks dazedly. Hasn’t been to a fair in a long time, either. It's all still a little hazy and he's got his hands clamped against his side, blood pulsing through his fingers, and distantly he can hear the sounds of the evacuated carousel.

Of all the ways to go, this is not what he expected at all.

For a moment, the carousel sounds fade out, and suddenly Phil tastes blood, sharp points of glass, heavy hands bruise into his throat to hold his head against the carpet and he reaches—

"Coulson," he hears, carnival sounds flooding back in with it, and tries to open his eyes. "Coulson, you gotta... c'mon, look at me."

"Still here, Barton," he grits out. He forces one eye open, but there's too much blood running over the other; shallow, free-bleeding scalp wounds continue to be the bane of Phil's existence. Barton is beside him, eyes on Phil's side.

"Target's down, I got 'im. But you, we should," Barton starts, shutting his mouth immediately after without finishing the thought. He almost looks scared. Not exactly reassuring. Phil starts to ask how bad it is, but before he can, Barton bows his head and deliberately closes his eyes, breathing in. "We need to get your shirt off," he says all at once.

"Right," Phil says, nodding. Injury. Shirt off. Makes sense. And yet, Barton isn't grabbing or pulling or even unbuttoning anything. "Need me to move my hands?" Phil asks, trying not to sound nervous as he presses them harder over the wound.

"Yeah. Just gonna push it up enough to see—yeah," Barton mumbles. "That okay?" Phil nods. Sounds like the fastest course of action. He takes his hands away and Barton rucks up the side of the shirt just past the wound, heavy hands pressing to Phil's skin. Heavy, _shaking_ hands.

Something about this all feels familiar to Phil, but he can't quite place it. It's getting harder to think. His open eye falls shut.

"Still here," he mumbles, in case Barton gets worried. "Still here."

"I'm gonna try and get this clean and covered up, okay?" Barton says, one hand's pressure leaving the wound. "If anything hurts like it's getting worse, stop me."

"Sure," Phil says, but he's not sure he's going to be conscious enough for that.

It occurs to him as he's drifting out again that maybe it's just the blood loss talking, but Barton's behavior seems strange. He expected Barton to be all business and unsympathetic snark if he ever had to tend to someone in the field; that Barton might be considerate, even gentle, never once crossed his mind.

It’s unexpected, and yet, there’s something clicking into place in the back of Phil’s mind that says it makes sense, considering...

Considering what?

Before he can place it, everything goes dark.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EXPEDITED FIELD REINSTATEMENT REQUEST FORM 11C - STATEMENT

IDENTIFICATION OF OPERATIVE: _Coulson-062190_

CURRENT STATUS: _Class B Medical Suspension_

I, _Phillip Coulson_ , on this _10th_ day of _October_ , _2003_ , request that my evaluation of fitness for duty be held within three (3) days of the filing of this form. I understand that it is my responsibility to provide documentation and/or testimony to support my request for reinstatement.

If available, I request that the following personnel be present at the evaluation to provide testimony or perspective for the review board:

_SHIELD Consulting Specialist: Barton, Clinton Francis_

I have filed this expedited request to overturn my _Class B Medical Suspension_ and request my reinstatement prior to the anticipated date of return to active field duty for the reasons given below:

_Have previously demonstrated full capability in field operations during final stages of injury recuperation. Will provide documentation to corroborate, ref. Case no. 21-4201-2226, incident date January 8 2001; Case no. 22-0526-549, incident date June 17 2001. Specialist Barton present at time of current injury; can testify as to seriousness of wound, and performance in sparring/training since injury._

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phil doesn’t actually piece anything together until a mission gone slightly awry in Grenoble, where he finds himself fighting a dialectical language barrier with a police captain while holding an ice pack to his forehead.

He's contemplating having "proficient in French" removed from his personnel file when Barton staggers very quickly past him, moving remarkably fast for someone who was unconscious just a minute ago. The SMUR unit runs past Phil next, which is his cue to go be responsible.

Phil excuses himself and catches up to the physician, explaining in as much French as he can manage that his friend is a little stubborn about medical assistance and Phil will handle the problem. The nurse and the EMT are whispering to each other, looking skeptical. Ignoring them, Phil walks away towards the alley Barton ran off into.

He finds Barton leaning on the building wall, breathing too hard for that short a run, hands fumbling between buttoning up his shirt and tucking it in. There's blood on his shirt from the struggle earlier; the doctors must have thought it was his and tried to get to the source. Phil can't read his expression, lost in the shadows of the alley.

"You all right?" Phil asks. Barton nods quickly, still not quite managing to get the buttons through or keep the fabric tucked under his waist. "You want a han—"

"No," Barton says without letting him finish. "No, just... I'm fine."

A line runs through the dots in the back of Phil's mind, tying too many familiar incidents together, and now he almost wants to ask. But what can he say— _"Barton, it's come to my attention you have a general issue with undressing, any comments?"_

So he leans on the opposite wall near the entrance to the alley, giving Barton his space, and when the SMUR unit comes up to check, Phil is perhaps not at his most polite when he tells them to go away.

He doesn't ask, Barton doesn't offer excuses, and half an hour later they're having casual conversation about European vs. American handgun manufacturers over brutally strong coffee, not even coming close to bringing it up. Still, he wonders.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There’s precious little time to gossip at SHIELD, and even less to actually suss out information. Intel comes to the rumor mill in passing conversations and glimpses of things, the occasional stolen fifteen minutes for lunch.

The first bit of intel to spread is a photocopy of basic info on a case in France; Coulson and Barton had their cover blown at the worst possible time and got into a brawl with a bar full of visiting mafia goons, with Barton emerging unscathed and Coulson bearing only a concussion.

Weeks later, there’s news of a standard sniper job where someone tried to take Barton out with piano wire while he was scouting on a roof; supposedly, Coulson climbed a fire escape across the street and put a bullet right through the hostile’s face before he could even leave a ligature mark on Barton.

They’re all starting to think Barton is the new invincible senior officer—soon to be agent, and someone’s even leaked the date of his qualification exam to actually get his SHIELD agent credentials.

It’s all going smoothly, right up until the HYDRA incident.

News of his disappearance on the mission is disheartening to the firing range staff, heartbreaking to Medical, and has the junior agents gathering in their corner in the cafeteria, heads bowed and voices low as they figure it was only a matter of time—the Coulson Curse had to get him eventually, right?

Gossip-hounds pass Coulson’s office on their way down the hall, but it’s dark, locked. The whispers start.

Within the hour, the rumors are sparking up and down the halls and all anyone can talk about is that a lot of attack and retrieval personnel have left the building—and isn’t it procedure to wait 24 hours?—until someone says they know someone who knows someone who saw Phil Coulson heading down the hallway with a look on his face that could probably put the fucking fear of god into Nick Fury himself.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HYDRA likes to taunt them when they have a prisoner, which usually means a sign of something personal sent to SHIELD. Normally Phil would brush their signals off as easily as anything else, but he's already decided they're going to regret the day they used Barton's bloodied shirt to do it.

He'll write himself up later for excessive force, but for now, he focuses on the numbers the guard spits at him, listens to the lock disengage in the cell block door and abandons the guard to clutch at his shattered kneecap. One door halfway down the corridor has two guards stationed at it, and Phil would consider logistics, except he hears a voice he knows inside and he's already drawing his sidearm.

One guard goes down clutching at his shoulder and the other crumples, arms over his stomach. They won't die any time soon, but the backup agents will secure them before they're in a mood to fight back.

Finding only a handle and no keypad at the cell door, Phil lays his foot on the gut-shot guard's wrists where they press over his abdomen, then holds out his hand, nodding at the door. There's a yelp from inside, a smirk from the guard, and Phil grinds his heel down, shoving past the guard's arms and right onto the wounds.

The guard hands him the keys without further argument.

Phil steps inside just in time to catch the riding crop’s whistle through the air and the sharp snap of impact on the body huddled at the wall. Before the interrogating officer can even turn around, Phil presses the muzzle to the back of the man's neck. He keeps his eyes on the officer, but he can’t completely shut out the other figure shuffling towards the corner of the room, the panicked breathing, the bared skin in the corner of his eye.

"Drop it," Phil growls, and the interrogating officer laughs.

The guard mumbles something Phil can't catch all of, bits and pieces—"already", "before", some quirk of dialect obscuring the grammar—but one word registers clearly above the rest.

_Gebrochen._

Phil blinks and it rings in his ears, gone from the interrogation room for an instant and instead hearing a much younger voice’s scream dying out into babbling, then "gebrochen" pronounced dully from beside the blood-drenched exam table, a trembling body unshackled and pushed aside to the floor—

He forces himself to breathe. This is Eichsfeld. Not Tuttlingen.

And Phil is not "broken".

It takes all of Phil's willpower not to just pull the trigger, but he summons up what objectivity he can manage, flips the gun in his hand to take hold of the barrel, and cracks the officer across the back of his skull with the weight of the grip, watching him fall and watching the riding crop in his hand hit the floor.

Phil holsters the gun, and finally his tunnel vision clears. No threats, no obstacles, just a single other conscious body, folded tightly into the corner of the room, bare from the waist up.

Barton sits on the floor, knees pulled up to his chest, head ducked behind them, one arm clutching around his legs and the other folded over his head. His arms are covered in marks; some of them are sharp red with torn skin, some speckled red, some bruised brown or purple.

"Barton," Phil says quietly, and Barton flinches full-body to press himself against the wall, curl closer into the cage of his arms and his bent legs. Phil takes a hesitant step closer, slowly getting down on one knee an arm's length away from him.

"...polis," Barton is mumbling, his voice muffled and uneven, quiet and loud and quiet again. "Acropolis. _Acropolis_." That's not a SHIELD codeword for anything in Phil's clearance. It doesn't sound like HYDRA's lexicon either. And they can’t have broken Barton down this far, this fast. This is old; this is information Phil doesn't have.

But Phil has always been good at improvisation, and if nothing else, he thinks he knows what Barton needs right now just to get his head above water again. Phil stands, stripping off his jacket, and unbuttons his shirt, sliding it off his arms.

"Hold out your hand," Phil coaxes. Barton falls immediately silent. After a few moments' hesitation, he raises a trembling hand from the back of his neck. Phil presses his shirt into Barton's palm. "Here."

Barton's fingers close on the fabric, and slowly, he lifts his head from behind his knees to look directly at the shirt. His eyes are wide and red-rimmed, his mouth bloodied, surrounded by more whip marks on his jaw, his forehead, his cheek.

"I'm going to take this guard out for the retrieval team," Phil says, pulling on his suit jacket over his undershirt. "Take whatever time you need."

"I... yeah," Barton says shakily, and doesn't look at Phil.

Standing, Phil heads back across the room and grabs the fallen guard by the collar of his uniform, dragging him out of the interrogation room and dropping him on the floor next to the other two.

The retrieval team gets in a few minutes later, and when they ask about Barton, all Phil says is that he'll be out in a minute. They give his jacket and undershirt combo a few suspicious looks, but leave with the HYDRA officers in tow, leaving Phil alone in the hallway.

Long minutes pass until finally, the door opens again and Barton steps out wearing Phil's shirt, hands in his pockets as he puts his back to the corridor wall next to Phil.

They're silent for a while, Phil working up his nerve and Barton tugging at the ends of the shirtsleeves.

"What's 'Acropolis'?" Phil asks. 

Barton very nearly smiles, small and tired

"It's where the Parthenon is," Barton says. "Should watch more _Jeopardy!_ , Coulson. You're getting rusty on your trivia." With that, he leans off the wall and starts to walk away. A few steps out, Barton pauses, sighs, says: "And, uh. I know you’re scheduled to give testimony to the licensing board tonight." 

He rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly, and for a moment, Phil thinks he’s going to ask Phil to pretend he didn’t see any of this.

Instead, Barton says, quietly: "If you tell them I’m not qualified anymore, no hard feelings."

There’s no resentment in his tone, no threat.

Barton’s steps are heavy as he heads off down the hall, following the path of the retrieval team and disappearing around a distant corner. He doesn’t once look back, and Phil wants to call out to him, but the guard’s voice is ringing in his ears, insistent, as he finally makes sense of the rest.

_Gebrochen_ is what stopped Phil, but that wasn’t all he said. The words register in the back of his mind, like a half-heard question taking shape.

_He was already broken when I started._

Barton is in the Medical team’s custody for the flight back, and Phil, postponing his mission report, focuses on the paperwork he brought with him.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHIELD CREDENTIAL EXAMINATION - STANDARD REFERENCE  
DATE OF EXAMINATION: 7/23/2004  
IDENTIFICATION OF OPERATIVE: _Barton-021512_

I, _Phillip Coulson_ , am prepared to confirm by (a) documentation, (b) testimony of direct observation, (c) supplied evidence, and/or (d) personal statement of character, that the operative in question meets the standards of conduct, character, and ability required of an established field agent in the service of SHIELD.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Phil walks into his office at 3 in the morning the day after the HYDRA mess, finally finished filling out his forms and giving his testimony to the board for the qualification exam, there's already a cup of coffee on his desk, next to a neatly folded, dry-cleaned shirt.

The cup is steaming hot in his hands when he picks it up, balancing it in his fingers to look at something odd he spots on one side. Written on the side of the cup in Barton’s familiar blocky print, he finds only: THANKS.

For a moment, he thinks it’s about the qualification exam, except he’s literally just finished and no personnel are allowed in the room save the board and the person testifying, anyway; Barton couldn’t possibly know that Phil just spent hours arguing in his defense. This is about something else.

Then Phil looks at the shirt again, and when it hits him, he sits down in his chair with his cup of coffee and says quietly in the silence of the office: "Oh."

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With every passing month, the agents of the SHIELD rumor mill find themselves reporting back stranger and stranger news about SHIELD’s most famous pair of loners.

Someone notices Barton slip into Coulson’s office at four in the morning; Barton turns off the light on the desk where Coulson has fallen asleep in his chair, then leaves quietly and closes the door.

Another agent watches Coulson leave the aftermath of a resolved hostage negotiation and head up to the roof where Barton sits with his rifle, their legs dangling close together over the edge, side-by-side.

Someone else spots Coulson and Barton in the cafeteria at night when the cooks are gone, paperwork and boxes of take-out spread on the table between them. Barton moves to steal a piece of something from a box in front of Coulson, and Coulson grabs Barton’s chopsticks in his, smirking before he steals back the bite of food from between them.

A Medical staffer sees the two leave work together, walking side by side down the hall and talking about a guy Coulson knew in college who ran away to the Peace Corps; Coulson lowers his voice to say something else, and Barton nearly trips, doubled over laughing _oh, no way._

And one junior agent, an alumnus of the original "do not sign on with Phil Coulson" club, happens to be walking by Coulson’s office late at night, not even planning to look in, when he overhears Coulson saying quietly, unevenly: "They didn’t even bother letting the families identify them afterward. There was nothing left."

Nearby, just as quiet, Barton says: "They weren’t the only ones on the table. What about you?"

The junior agent is already long gone down the hallway, and doesn’t stop to hear Coulson’s answer. 

Some things never quite make it to the rumor mill. But the absence of information is telling in its own way, and after that, the whispers in the corridors of SHIELD gradually subside.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>FROM: cbarton@mail.shld  
>>TO: pcoulson@mail.shld  
>>SUBJ: so hey  
>>DATE: 8/2/2005 9:38 PM  
>>  
>> hey coulson,  
>>  
>> so i was thinking about what you said. and  
>> i’m gonna be a dick and ask this over an  
>> e-mail, but, were you being serious? because  
>> i was being serious. about the whole not  
>> just being at your place to watch movies thing.  
>> and the long term avoiding thing. and i  
>> guess i should backspace all of this, but  
>> i think you’ve noticed by now that i don’t know  
>> how to shut up.  
>>  
>> what i’m trying to ask is, did i imagine it last  
>> week or did you maybe suggest you want to  
>> take me on a date  
>>  
>> because i’m not opposed to the idea  
>>  
>> at all  
>>  
>> but i want to make sure you’re okay and giving  
>> me the go-ahead on this. so if you weren’t  
>> then tell me no, and tell me no now, and dont  
>> feel bad about it. but if you were serious and  
>> you do want to try this whole thing, then okay.  
>>  
>> hitting send now  
>>  
>> just don’t hate me or anything, all right  
>>  
>> \- clint  
>>  
>> ps. if you respond with any kind of no later on,  
>> even if you agreed at first, i will drop this and  
>> never, ever bring it up again. no problem.  
>>  
>> i mean that.  
>>  
>> and you don’t even have to give me a reason. you can  
>> just back out.  
>>  
>> you can always say no.  
>>  
>>  
>> seriously, hitting send now.  
>> shutting up  
>> ok talk to you later

FROM: pcoulson@mail.shld  
TO: cbarton@mail.shld  
SUBJ: RE: so hey  
DATE: 8/2/2005 9:43 PM

Clint,

Yes.

\- Phil

  
  


_Symmetry_

  
  


Their first date is a movie. It’s mindless and full of explosions, and Coulson guesses all the plot twists in the first five minutes. In the dark of the theater, Coulson’s arms stay closely tucked to his body, while Clint keeps his hands on the popcorn, surprising Coulson between mouthfuls by talking about how poorly the third act is structured, even for an action movie.

Afterward, Coulson drives Clint home, and Clint leans in his apartment doorway and grins, suggests they do it again sometime; Coulson agrees, and nods good night from three feet away. Clint smiles at Coulson’s back disappearing down the hall.

They’re re-learning their boundaries now that this is "dating", and lesson one is that no one really feels sure about touching.

The line is drawn, and neither of of them crosses it, and it’s impossibly comforting to Clint that even though they’ve taken some step into calling this something other than friendship, that doesn’t mean there are certain expectations or things demanded of him.

No expectations, no pressure, and no urge to follow his fear of commitment and flee.

Clint really doesn’t know how to feel about that last part.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second date is canceled due to a SHIELD emergency, a hard fight. Clint pretends to sleep at Coulson’s bedside in the infirmary, staring wide-eyed and terrified at the bandaged wound in Coulson’s thigh (a near miss to the artery, the doctors said _miraculous_ and Clint is still shaking) while Coulson breathes in medication-assisted sleep.

Tentatively, Clint lets his fingers rest close to Coulson’s on the sheets, barely brushing and then uneasily drawing back, but Coulson’s hand twitches at the loss like it’s reaching out. Clint hates how lonely it looks, and after a moment of indecision, he lets his hand inch closer.

When Coulson wakes up hours later and looks at their joined hands, he draws his back with a mumbled "sorry"; Clint catches Coulson’s fingers between his again, guides them back down to the sheets together. Coulson smiles, and Clint dodges it, hiding his sheepish grin behind his arm as he puts his head down, finally letting himself drift into sleep.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date Three is take-out in Coulson’s office, because Clint finds him there staring at an old file. Coulson tells him about a junior agent he had once; sweet kid, wanted to be a social worker but SHIELD scooped him up out of college, told him he’d do well here.

Coulson tells Clint that the kid took a long time to die, sat in the corner of the holding cell in Tuttlingen with another dying junior’s head pillowed on in his lap—a young Québécois translator on loan from CSIS, who had screamed _Ich weiss nicht_ to their questions and faded into sobbing incomprehensible French while they tortured him—petting his hair and singing "Alouette" with his voice wet with blood, the flutter of a punctured lung audible in his weak inward breaths.

Clint silently, helplessly offers a box of take-out, and when Coulson’s hands shake around it, Clint lets himself rest his palms over Coulson’s fingers, steadying. Coulson’s thumb brushes over the back of Clint’s hand, and Clint doesn’t mean to speak, but winds up saying: "I’m glad you made it out."

There’s a long moment of silence after that, and then Coulson looks blankly up at him and gives the slightest curl of a wry half-smile as he answers, "I’m not."

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The fourth date is spent not-watching re-runs on Coulson’s TV, half drunk and reminiscing about old missions where the mistakes were funny instead of horrific. They laugh, more than Clint’s laughed in a long time, and it reminds him of what this is, what it’s supposed to be; he’s still amazed sometimes that Coulson is willing to take this so slowly. It’s the last thought Clint has before he closes his eyelids, heavy with the alcohol, and it’s all dark and quiet until he wakes up in the morning with a blanket draped over him.

When it dawns on him that he was just passed out on booze, in the apartment of someone he’s _dating_ , he remembers too much—his head spinning, a sharp pain at his hip, rubber between his teeth, _no wonder you only marked that as a soft limit, look how much you like it_ laughed close to his ear—and he’s halfway to the door already, his hand shaking tight around the knob and his forehead resting against the wood, sucking in air between his teeth and trying to tell himself where he is, to calm.

There are footsteps from the bedroom, and he’s terrified of an interrogation and of contact and his palm is trembling and sweat-slick around the knob and he can’t turn it, he can’t get out, except then Coulson is leaning on the wall next to the door, in Clint’s field of vision and drawing his eyes over.

All Coulson asks is, "You all right?" and Clint drops his hand from the doorknob, leans heavily on the door, doesn’t want to talk but has to, and he’s hyper-aware of a scar on his hipbone and it feels like it’s going to slice him in half if he doesn’t speak.

"Wouldn’t let me leave," Clint says uselessly (like it matters, like Coulson would ever care enough to hear the whole awful story) and after he’s pushed off the door and sprawled miserably on the couch, he manages to fumble through enough words to say that he just likes to have an escape route, physically, wherever he is.

Coulson nods without asking, pours them each a cup of coffee, and Clint pulls the blanket over both of their laps and presses his shoulder to Coulson’s for the hour they spend in silence after that.

It takes a week for Clint to notice Coulson deliberately positioning himself in rooms so that he’s not standing between Clint and a possible exit (doors, windows, preferred ceiling tiles to sneak into the ducts, even), and another week after that for Clint to touch Coulson’s arm when he’s in the middle of changing angles and ask, genuinely confused: "How long are you going to do this?"

"As long as you want me to," Coulson replies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

And it’s a small thing, the positioning, but it’s more than anyone has ever understood about him, and it makes Clint’s heart feel huge and hurt and heavy in his chest, wanting all of this to last, but terrified that he’s already given away too much, and that when this all gets too complicated, too close, all either of them will want to do is run.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Their fifth date is street-cart hot dogs after a stakeout, and Clint leans back against the wall of a brownstone and gently grasps Coulson’s— _Phil's_ , it’s getting easier for Clint to think of him as "Phil" now—tie between his thumb and knuckle, coaxes Coulson closer.

He realizes too late he feels boxed in, doesn’t want to speak up and stop it—remembers the last time, when that only made it worse, can’t, shouldn’t, can’t—and he closes his eyes too tightly on reflex like he’s expecting a blow.

But Phil goes still, touches Clint’s arm where it’s all muscle, where Clint’s told him he doesn’t feel so nervous about unexpected contact. Clint blinks at him, and Phil turns to lean beside him, put his own back to the building. Phil gets it. Phil doesn’t _know_ , but he does get it. It’s enough for Clint.

Turning and leaning closer, Clint lets his eyes close, lightly this time, and brushes his lips over Phil’s.

The first time they kiss, Phil’s mouth tastes like ketchup and he laughs softly around a tentative stroke of Clint’s tongue, strokes his thumb in slow circles against Clint’s bicep like an orbital path, like gravity pulling him in, and it’s more than enough.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s a month, and another month, and still a few months after that, before they finally reach that confusing point where Clint mumbles something and Phil has to lean back from kissing him, tilt his head where it rests against the kitchen wall and frown a little.

Which is a reasonable reaction, because he’s read Clint’s file and he has to know about Clint’s family history from psych evals, and he’s watched Clint’s startle reactions to so many things for all these years, and now here’s Clint with his hand on the back of Phil’s, pressing Phil’s fingers into his hair and asking him to _pull_.

"You..." Phil looks like he’s choosing his words carefully. "You’d like that?" he asks, and Clint nods.

"Yeah," Clint says, and presses a small kiss to Phil’s bottom lip, reassurance. "It's fine."

After a moment’s hesitation, Phil’s fingers tighten in his hair, slowly, incrementally. Just the feeling of his fingertips dragging in across Clint’s scalp makes him shiver with anticipation, and then they curl, knuckles pressing closer. Finally there’s a grip, light at first, testing, and Clint is breathing harder already, stuck on the feeling coiling up inside his chest.

"More, more’s good," Clint says breathlessly, and the tendons in Phil’s wrist tense where they rest against Clint’s cheek.

Finally, there’s the pull, and the pain is small and sustained and bright and it’s _Phil_ and Clint is safe and it hurts so fucking good and it’s been so long, and he leans in and presses his lips to Phil’s, gasps into his mouth, his heart thumping hard in his chest with want and satisfaction, nothing like panic at all.

"Wow," Phil says, like he’s just now noticing that yes, Clint _would_ like that. He lets go of Clint’s hair, runs his palm over the same place where the pain just was. His skin is warm and he’s gentle, and he’s breathing harder too when he murmurs against the corner of Clint’s mouth, "Did I do that right?"

Clint will need a few months before he can explain exactly how right, can really start to have this conversation with Phil, and even then he’s going to start out slow.

Today, he presses himself closer to Phil and smiles against his jaw, sighing like the weight of the world just rolled away from his shoulders, and says, "Yeah. Perfect."

He would go on, but their phones are ringing for work on the coffee table, and reluctantly they separate themselves and pick up. Clint idly paces a few steps away from the table while the conference call on the objective gets started, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Phil move, taking a few steps of his own, putting himself across the room from the door and away from the windows, offering Clint a small smile.

Even though Clint asked for that, even though he just re-drew a ton of lines between them without warning, Phil hasn’t taken that as a go-ahead to cross any others—Clint hasn’t asked for this part to change, so it hasn’t.

They listen in on the conference call about the mission objective, and Clint leans against the wall where Phil was a moment ago, trying to focus on Fury’s voice over the sudden pounding of his heart in his ears when it occurs to him that this, this mess that he would bring into a relationship, the complications and contradictions, Phil might actually be okay with all of it. They might not run from this after all.

And thank god, Clint thinks as he notices himself half-consciously working out the quickest paths to the windows and the door, because he doesn’t want to have to run anymore.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first time Clint realizes how far they've gotten, he's out of breath and Phil is arching his back up from the couch cushions towards Clint, his body pressing hot and close through their clothes, and Clint goes a little dizzy at how much he finds himself wanting this.

But just like every time he's shied away from getting close, the thought goes tumbling over the edge into—if this actually starts to be about sex, you’re going to have to explain, it’s going to be so much more complicated now, he’s going to get frustrated with you, he probably already is, this is a bad idea, pull back, give up—and he doesn’t mean to say anything, but he hears himself mumble: "Wait."

Phil drops down to the cushions, goes completely still, looking up at Clint with his full attention.

"Okay," Phil says, hands fallen to his sides.

Clint misses his hands already, regretting saying anything at all, except he's relieved, too. God, Clint doesn’t even know what he wants right now. Well, no, he _does_ know that, but he doesn’t know what to ask for, doesn’t know how far he’s ready to push this.

He sits up, sits back and he’s straddling Phil on the couch and it’s not helping. He’s so hard it hurts, throbbing in his briefs and too-firm denim when he looks down at Phil, and there’s Phil’s hard-on pressing against his thigh through their pants, too good, too much.

"No pressure," Phil says breathlessly, still not moving or reaching.

Clint nods. He wants and shouldn't want, and god, the worst thing would be if they tried and he panicked; he doesn't want to set himself off and he doesn't want to freak Phil out. It's safer to just stop. Just stop and walk away and maybe they can both just jerk off and feel unsatisfied and Clint can keep being a disappointment.

"You okay?" Phil asks, and oh, fuck, it must be showing on Clint's face.

"So far," he says, sounding more miserable than intended.

Clint knows it's coming before Phil even says it, looks away as Phil offers: "We can stop."

"Don't want to stop," Clint mutters, but he's already leaning back, flopping sideways against the couch cushions with a frustrated sigh. He hates this. It feels like giving up—like a surrender.

After all these years, that asshole is still winning.

"Fuck it," Clint says, suddenly angry at something long since out of his reach. He rolls over so he doesn't have to look at Phil. He doesn't want to have to explain. "Just, forget it."

And it's not fair to Phil for him to be acting like this, but it's also not fucking fair that Clint doesn't own his own brain or his own body anymore, so maybe everyone else can take a little unfairness, too. The downside of not explaining is that now Phil is going to feel bad, and he's going to apologize, and Clint won't know how to explain that it's not his fault, it's not either of their faults.

"You want me to go?" Phil asks quietly, which is exactly what he _should_ be asking, but the guilt in his voice makes Clint feel like a jerk anyway.

"No." Clint's heart is throbbing in his chest and he's still breathing too fast. He hates that the line between "turned on" and "panic" still blurs in his mind sometimes. Another reason not to do this. He's a real fucking mess.

"Any—" Phil starts and Clint is already wincing, he hates this question, "—thing I can do?"

There's not, and that's what sucks most about this, so Clint sounds bitter when he says, too harshly: " _No_ , just... forget it, all right?"

"Sorry," Phil says quietly.

Clint hates everything.

He stays curled up on his end of the couch and doesn't look back, because he feels like shit, and he knows Phil feels like shit, and it's neither of their faults but they're the only ones here, aren't they?

The silence goes on too long after that, but Clint doesn't feel like moving anymore, and there's nothing to say.

He doesn't know how long it's been when Phil turns on the TV across the room, idle background noise of game shows filtering in, doesn't matter which, changing every half hour. Phil doesn't know what to do either, clearly, but at least it's something.

When the windows dim, Phil turns on a light, and there's a dragging sound from behind Clint, then Phil's voice hesitantly saying: "Got a blanket."

Clint reaches blindly up and back, lets Phil press a corner of it into his hand to pull over himself, and he suddenly remembers the HYDRA base, Phil offering his shirt, the way his mind wandered while he pulled it on, imagining Phil's hands and Phil's voice— _is this okay?_ —as cautious and understanding as the real thing has turned out to be.

Phil is basically perfect and it's still not enough, nowhere near enough to fight back against the fucked-up mess in Clint's head. Phil could do so much better. Phil's wasted so much time on Clint already.

Clint sits up, finally. He wants to just be an asshole and tell Phil to leave, and maybe start to put space between them starting tomorrow, push Phil away by degrees.

"Look, you should probably just..." Clint starts, hesitates and meets his eyes. Phil looks guilty, has on that face he wears for Fury when he knows he's messed up and he's ready for censure. And Clint swears to god, Phil maybe looks a little scared.

Which is when Clint catches himself about to throw away the singular good thing in his life, and stops cold.

And, no.

No. No fucking way, Clint thinks. Maybe Clint will always be a little screwy in the head, and have a knife scar on his hip that isn't from work, and be a little too good at mapping out escape routes, but this, the two of them, Clint and Phil— _he_ doesn't get to own any part of that. He doesn't get the satisfaction of ruining this.

"...Probably just stay over, since it's already dark out," Clint finishes, and doesn't quite manage a smile, but he thinks it's almost one. It gains some ground when Phil smiles back.

"Sounds good," Phil says, tension easing from his shoulders and fear gone from his eyes as he leans back at his end of the couch, still giving Clint space.

Clint promptly crawls across the space between them and lays his head on Phil's lap, pulls the blanket cozily over himself as proof that he's planning to stay there.

"I’m good. You can be... y'know, hands-on, if you want," Clint says, not really sure of how else to put it. It sounds kind of awkward.

But apparently, it works pretty well. Phil's fingers card through his hair, soft and steady, and Phil asks: "You'll tell me if you need me to be 'hands-off'?"

"Yeah," Clint says, nods into Phil's thigh.

They're still and comfortable and quiet through _The Price Is Right_ for the last ten minutes. Phil offers to throw together dinner after that, and they sit together on the couch with plates of stir-fry for the next set of game-show reruns, with Clint admitting a secret fondness for Wayne Brady while Phil (appropriately deadpan) says that watching Colin Mochrie is how he perfects keeping a straight face.

Dinner is simple, and normal, and by the time they’re finished, everything seems to have eased into order again. Plates set aside, they settle in under the blanket, and this time, it's Phil who puts his head on Clint's shoulder.

"Glad you're all right," Phil murmurs into the side of Clint's neck.

"Sorry," says Clint.

"It's not y—"

"I know it's not," he interrupts.

And he does know, and Phil knows, but what else is there to do but apologize sometimes?

"Thanks for staying over," Clint says, which is just about as useless, but it's something. Phil just nods into his shoulder, and under the blanket, he rests his hand on top of Clint's.

Feeling just, just, _just_ slightly brave, Clint takes Phil's hand and rests it on his thigh, lays his own hand on top of Phil's to hold it there and draw the line. He's going to find a way to take back this part of his brain and make this safe. He knows what he wants.

"Just need more practice," Clint decides, resting his head against Phil's.

Phil nods again, and falls asleep on Clint's shoulder, his hand laying heavy on Clint's leg like armor, his steady breathing lulling Clint down after him.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Staying over” is a lot of things.

It’s the two of them curled up on the couch, sitting up against the cushions shoulder-to-shoulder, like they're tucked away behind cover on a mission. It's Phil falling asleep on the couch with a clipboard full of paperwork, and Clint sprawled in his own bed in the other room. It's hesitation when Clint picks up the spare pillow and blanket, glances at the bed, and thinks, _maybe_ , and then bringing them out to Phil on the couch anyway, and possibly just imagining that Phil looks a little relieved, too.

One night, it's walking out of his room to get a glass of water and seeing motion in the corner of his eye, looking over to find Phil lying on the couch with one arm stretched out towards the ceiling, fingers idly bending and straightening.

"Still up?" Clint asks.

"Yeah," Phil says, distant, and doesn't look away from his hand.

Clint gets his glass of water and looks over the rim of it at Phil, watches him when he sets the glass in the sink, glances when he starts to walk back to the bedroom. Phil doesn't move or look, just keeps flexing his fingers.

"G'night," Clint says.

Phil doesn't say anything, and Clint doesn't really know what to say other than that, so he leaves Phil to his thoughts and goes back to bed.

In the morning, he walks out to make coffee and finds Phil sitting up on the couch, just sort of staring off into space, and tentatively, he says: "Phil?" and then: "Did you sleep?"

It takes a few seconds for Phil to blink, a few more for him to look up and through Clint instead of really at him, and then Phil says, "Yeah," quiet and not very convincing.

Clint makes coffee, brings a cup over to the coffee table by the couch where Phil still hasn't moved, and sits down next to him. He watches Phil's hands wrap around the mug, fingers tensing and palms pressing against the ceramic for a moment. Phil holds it without raising it or drinking it, stares down into it instead.

There are questions Clint could be asking, _you all right?_ or _wanna talk?_ , but those are Normal Good Boyfriend things and Clint knows them both well enough to know he won't get a real answer, so he sits there without waiting for anything in particular, just shares some space with Phil.

Minutes pass, and finally Phil takes a sip, says: "I should get a shower." After another moment blinking at the mug, he sets down his barely-touched coffee and goes, socks dragging softly against the carpet. Clint listens to the water run as he gets dressed, and he drinks Phil's coffee after saturating it with sugar, then pours a fresh, hot cup for him when he walks back out, dressed in a clean suit.

"Thanks," Phil says quietly as he accepts the cup, and there's some life back in his eyes but he still looks tired in a way Clint can't place, like just standing here is exhausting.

So Clint smiles too brightly and nods to the apartment door, rocks back on his heels a little like an excited kid, pockets his hands.

"Ready to go foil some evil plans?" Clint asks.

The way Phil smiles back, forced and broken and not reaching his eyes at all, makes Clint feel like the world just dropped out from under his feet.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At SHIELD with an operation already half-underway, they're assigned different vehicles for separate briefings (separate clearance levels, though Clint is moving up gradually).

A few hours of explanations later, Clint is put on a rooftop with his bow, aiming carefully into the center of the locked-down park square. SHIELD cars on one side, statues everywhere, thick stone railings and staircases down into the cobblestone center, and somewhere far outside the square, there’s a bomb or two ticking. They need some of these guys alive.

He tries to focus on the job instead of— _where is Phil posted, what was bothering him last night, should have asked, should have_ —and then takes down a designated target who steps out of cover in the square. At least it relieves a little of the tense feeling.

But because today is bound and determined not to go well, he glances away from the downed man and sees one of the designated targets with a gun to a young SHIELD agent’s head, arm around the kid’s throat above blood spreading on his shirt, dragging him towards the enemy line. They _really_ need to stop sending junior agents on complex assignments, but hey, personnel isn’t Clint’s jurisdiction. He sighs and lines up his shot on the hostage-taker.

“Got one of ours. Looks hurt. Call the shot when it’s good,” he says over the comm line.

“ _Hold position,_ ” someone answers, gruff-voiced. Clint doesn’t bother to learn names of other agents, just goes with it. “ _He’s close enough to Alpha team, one of them could pr—hold position,_ ” the agent repeats, his tone urgent, “ _I said, hold—_ ”

“ _Sir,_ ” another agent says over the line, and she sounds uneasy, “ _He already took out his comm._ ”

Clint is used to missions going just slightly off-course. He's used to them going all kinds of wrong, at this point. So he's not really sure why there's a rush of panic at this one, why he suddenly can't quite breathe, hisses: “Who took out his comm?” over the line, and already knows.

“ _He’s not—_ ”

Then there’s movement in the edge of the SHIELD ranks closest to the hostage-taker, and Clint doesn’t know where to look, trying to keep his shot on the target, who’s raising a gun towards someone moving in from the SHIELD side, out of cover and moving in a straight line, gotta be another junior because no one could be that fucking out of their mind, Clint must have been wrong. He has to be.

He’s not.

He lets his eyes flick away from the hostage-taker to the incoming SHIELD agent, and he’s just in time to see Phil’s steady forward walk jarred by the impact of the bullet, his feet stuttering on cobblestone before he’s surging forward again towards the target and the hostage.

No, no, no no no, Clint thinks, and he could take the shot but the junior’s head is in the way, and Clint’s knees are shaking, and all he can do is watch the target fire another shot (he doesn’t watch that one hit Phil, too, he can’t, he’s going to fall off of this fucking roof), take a step back, and then the target’s forehead goes bloody with one clean shot from Phil.

The target drops, Phil hauls the junior to his feet and clamps a hand over the wound in the kid’s side, and that’s right about when Clint notices there’s no blood on Phil’s suit.

Kevlar, Clint realizes dully. Kevlar, sure. Phil knew he would be fine. Phil always has a plan, right?

Clint still can’t breathe.

Phil has already pulled the kid back into cover, and over the comm line, someone is saying they’ve found the bombs and reinforcements are surrounding the square now. Reinforcements are in the square. Reinforcements take the targets to waiting vans. Waiting vans drive away.

Someone whose name Clint doesn’t know says: “ _Barton, you’re clear, get down here_ ,” and he realizes he hasn’t moved in twenty minutes.

At ground level, the SHIELD convoy is already leaving for headquarters and someone tells him Phil already left, and Clint doesn’t remember asking, doesn’t really—someone says, “Barton,” impatient, and he guesses he was just standing there and staring because the guy is looking at him warily. “Jesus, you fall or something?”

There’s blood in Clint’s mouth and he doesn’t know when he started biting his lip.

“Arrow,” Clint says dully, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nicked it.”

Clint gets into the SUV with the last of the team. The whole drive back, he stares out the window, and no one bothers to tell him to listen to the post-mission debriefing.

At SHIELD, he breaks from the team’s walk to the locker room and hits a hallway restroom first, drops to his knees in the stall and vomits coffee and powerbars and blood that he swallowed.

He knows what he saw.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The main wing of SHIELD Medical didn’t keep Phil long, Clint finds out. It’s been an hour since they released him with bruising and a cracked rib; no one says anything about a psych eval.

Clint finds him in his office, pen in hand and forms on the desk, probably writing up a SITREP form on today’s mission. Phil doesn’t look up, and Clint steps inside, closes the door behind him. He waits. Should keep waiting. Can’t.

“Phil,” he says, and his voice is weak.

Phil raises his eyes from the forms, and he looks blankly up at Clint, blinks slowly, once. He doesn’t say hello, or even “hey”. He’s not really here.

“Hey,” Clint says for him. “You should go get some sleep. Let somebody else do the paperwork.”

There’s something small and cynical curving Phil’s mouth that isn’t quite a smile. He picks up the folder in front of him and holds it out to Clint, and Clint takes it, glances idly down.

_Case no. 22-0526-549  
ID: June 17 2001_

This isn’t for today’s operation.

He knows what happened in January that year. The impulse is there, but he resists flipping it open, looks at Phil to be sure, asks: “Can I...?” Phil shrugs, makes a dismissive motion with his hand, leans back in his chair to look up at the ceiling.

Clint lets his eyes scan the report to get what he needs, discards the rest.

_Incident date June 17. Location: Agent Residence. — break-in by enemy operatives (3) — goal: suppression of information ref. incident Jan 8 — enemy operatives terminated — citation: excessive force (3) counts — agent sustained moderate to severe injuries — agent requests reinstatement — evaluation: agent reinstated, probationary, supervision requred._

Clint pieces it together and sets the file back on Phil’s desk. He doesn’t know what to ask, or say, and doesn’t really know why Phil had out that file instead of, say, the Tuttlingen ones themselves. 

At a loss, he just wheels over the spare chair in Phil’s office and sits down on the other side of the desk, picks up an extra pen to dismantle.

“Let me know when you’re good to leave,” Clint says, and then probably says too much when he adds: “Don’t want you alone tonight.”

“Yeah,” says Phil, still looking up at the ceiling.

Clint leaves him to his thoughts by turning his attention to the pen he stole, and sets down the pieces of the pen one by one on the desk as he goes. After he’s worked apart every bit that he can, he carefully fits it all back together, taking his time, not once looking across the desk.

He’s not sure how long it’s been when he sets the rebuilt pen down on the desk, but he’s surprised when Phil’s hand reaches across to pick it up. Phil’s fingertips brush the back of Clint’s hand before he pulls the pen to him, turns it idly in his fingers without looking up.

Clint almost doesn’t hear him say, quietly: “Mind if I stay over tonight?”

“I already locked up my gear,” Clint says, standing.

Phil nods, leans forward. When he pushes himself up, he winces, fingers digging white-knuckled into the arm of the chair, and a chill spreads out through Clint’s blood when he thinks of bruising and hairline fractures in bone.

Clint lets Phil lean on him for a moment, smiles reassuringly as he nods for the office door, and doesn’t say _I thought I was watching you die._

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the apartment, Clint microwaves canned soup and makes more coffee (there is no wrong time for caffeine, where they’re concerned), and Phil kneels at the coffee table with his head pillowed on his arms, stares silently at a 30-letter _Wheel of Fortune_ puzzle with only the Ts filled in, instead of calling out the answer like he usually does.

Not saying much of anything himself, Clint puts a bowl of soup and a mug of coffee in front of Phil, and drapes a light blanket around his shoulders because it’s unusually cold for the second half of May and the complex’s heat is broken.

_Unusually cold for May_ , Clint thinks. _Incident Date June 17th._

“S,” Phil quietly suggests to the _Wheel of Fortune_ contestants, dark circles clear under his eyes.

Neither of them eats.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Staying over” is Clint suggesting for the hundredth time that Phil can take the bed, and Phil finally agreeing.

Phil sits on the edge without lying down. Clint takes a chance; he sits down next to Phil, leaves a foot of space to give him room. Phil looks down at his arms crossed in his lap, idly bends his fingers in towards his palm, stretches them back out. There’s still blood in the creases of his skin from the junior agent he rescued, spidery red across his palm. 

“You did good today,” Clint lies.

Phil thumbs at the dried blood and says to his hands: “Help me lie down?”

Clint does.

“Get some rest,” says Clint uselessly, watching Phil’s eyes close.

Clint gets up, leaves the bedroom, and curls up on the couch to stare past silhouettes of untouched bowls and coffee mugs at the TV.

He mutes the sound and listens for footsteps, for warning signs, and doesn’t sleep.

In the middle of the night, Clint looks up from where he sits on the couch to find Phil wandering out of the bedroom. Wordlessly, Phil sits beside him, easing back against the cushions.

Then his head weighs on Clint’s shoulder, and Clint should have something tactful or some kind of lead-in, but he’s already expecting Phil to deflect, and what comes out of his mouth is: “You tried to kill yourself today.”

“By proxy,” Phil admits, shrugging against Clint’s shoulder.

Well.

All right.

He wasn’t expecting that.

“You could at least have the decency to feel guilty about it,” Clint mutters, and wraps an arm gently around Phil’s shoulders, mindful of his cracked rib.

He should probably be pissed at Phil for doing it, and even more pissed at him for being so casual about the whole thing, but mostly he just keeps picturing the way Phil’s body jerked when the bullet hit the vest and losing his train of thought to _thank god you’re okay._

And he can’t call Phil out on this, not really, after all the times Clint has thrown himself into almost certain death just because it didn’t matter all that much. It’s probably not the right reaction, but... Clint kind of _gets_ it.

“Not really feeling like yourself today, huh?” Clint asks into Phil’s hair, and Phil shakes his head.

“Bad time of year,” Phil says.

Yeah. Clint definitely gets it.

“Comes and goes?” Clint asks, and Phil nods into the curve of his neck. “Maybe take yourself out of the field for a little while. Get more sleep.”

“Yeah,” Phil sighs, and then: “Thanks for not being pissed at me,” and then: “Help me up?”

Clint helps him to the bedroom, helps him lie down, and Phil looks up at him with a crease in his forehead like he’s thinking, breathing in like he’s going to speak and then not quite saying anything for a while.

“I can stay,” Clint says without thinking, because it seems like the right thing to say, but suddenly he’s worried maybe he _can’t_ —except there’s a stretch of sheets on the bed next to Phil and it doesn’t seem so bad, and maybe he’s more okay with re-evaluating this line than he thought.

Phil nods, looks like he’s waiting for Clint to back out. Clint just smiles, climbs up onto the bed next to him, and with Phil mindful of the cracked rib, it’s not like they can do much besides lie down in general proximity to each other.

It’s convenient, except for the part where Phil is hurt because dying didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Clint lies down, and in the corner of his eye, he sees Phil raise his hand slightly, fingers curling and uncurling in the dim city light through the window.

“So what’s with the hand thing?” Clint asks.

“Tell you some other time,” Phil says, on the edges of a yawn. “Go to sleep.”

“Yeah,” says Clint, starting to feel drowsy himself in the familiar softness of the bed. “Long day.” Too tired to filter, he adds: “I was watching, y’know. When you got hit.”

“Sorry,” Phil says softly.

“Scared me,” Clint says, but it's halfhearted. He’s really not mad, as much as he wishes he could be; he feels like most people probably would be. Then again, he’s never really felt like anger at his own recklessness helped him much. “Glad you’re not dead.”

“Me, too,” Phil murmurs, and Clint doesn’t know if he means it or if he’s just saying it to be reassuring. Either way, Phil rests his hand on top of Clint’s between them, and it helps. “Thanks for staying.”

Clint listens to his breathing settle in sleep, slow and even.

Long after Phil has drifted off, Clint lifts his other hand from the sheets and holds it up.

He stares up at its outline against the ceiling, curls his fingers in and straightens them again, and he wonders.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They don't talk about the park square incident, Phil buries himself in work at SHIELD HQ to stay out of the field for a while, and with a little denial and avoidance on both sides things are fine again, more or less—except there are conversations they still need to have that both of them are dodging, and apparently it's Clint's turn to start hiding again.

It also doesn’t help that they’ve reached the point in this where they’re not afraid to argue anymore.

"What are my thoughts on _what_?" Phil asks breathlessly, gasping hotly against Clint's neck.

"Biting," Clint repeats, and when Phil leans away he's doing that thing again where he looks up at Clint like he's grown a second head, his knee frozen still where it presses up between Clint's thighs, skin hot through his slacks and Clint's jeans. "Really," Clint says, looks seriously at him. "Any aversion to it, or...?"

"No," says Phil slowly, then looks uneasy when he corrects himself: " _Well_... you biting me, or me biting you?"

"Either," Clint says, gives a small shrug.

"Right," Phil says absently, and frowns up at him from where he lies on his back on the couch, pauses. Clint doesn't like where this is going. "Is this like the hair-grabbing thing?"

"Maybe." Clint's answer doesn't seem to inspire confidence. "What?" he asks, feels a little put-out when Phil's knee slides down and away from between his legs, Phil's face suddenly serious and looking none too eager for what he's planning to say.

"How much of an asshole would I be if I asked you to explain that?" Phil asks, already wincing as he asks.

Clint scowls down at Phil, leaning up and off of him to sit back on the couch, and slowly replies: "Kind of a lot."

"I figured." Phil closes his eyes and sighs. "I don't... you don't have to explain."

"Damn right, I don't," Clint mutters, looking away at the wall. "Are we allowed to just make out? Can I say _one_ thing without this going to shit?" He pauses to breathe and stops halfway to say: "Don't say 'sorry'," and Phil was saying something with an 's' that stops instantly.

"What _do_ I say?" Phil asks, slouching where he lies on the couch, finally starts to sound the slightest bit frustrated with this. That’s good. That’s _great_. If Phil wants to be frustrated, Clint can give it right back to him.

"Well," Clint grits out. "How about, 'you're right, Clint, you're allowed to just like something without having to write a fucking essay about why.'"

"How about, 'you're not the only one with boundaries here'?" Phil mutters, and Clint has to huff out a laugh at Phil— _this_ is what Clint was waiting for.

He turns looking for a fight on this, but Phil seems to have found his grown-up emotional bearings again because he’s staring back at Clint, looking sad and lost and kind of helpless—Phil Coulson is _never_ helpless, and seeing him like this will never not be unsettling and really fucking wrong and make Clint ache all the way into his bones.

"I don’t want to be pissed at you about this," Phil says quietly, and Clint doesn’t know how to describe the look on his face except "scared".

And for just a second, Clint hates himself for looking for a fight when he knows that can’t be fun for Phil, either. He feels like even more of a dick when he realizes Phil had a really good point a minute ago—Clint has been asking him for things and assuming any discomfort is just Phil being overly cautious with him.

"Yeah, well. Maybe you should be pissed," Clint admits. "You're right. You have boundaries, too."

Phil is quiet for a while, and then he sighs, heavy, and says: "I've had a lot of lucky guesses." Clint turns to find Phil looking up at the ceiling, avoiding Clint's eyes. "The shirt thing back in Eichsfeld, or not standing between you and exits. I got lucky. I don't..." He frowns, thoughtful. "With the pain thing, I don't want to guess wrong."

"I'll stop you if there's a problem," Clint says. "You gotta trust me."

"I do," Phil says quickly, but looks like he regrets it a second later. "Not doing a great job of showing it, though," he mumbles, and rubs at his forehead, grimacing. "Yeah, I see where you're coming from on this."

"I mean, if _you’re_ not okay with something, tell me and we'll stop," Clint says. "Just... don’t try to make that call for me, is all."

"That’s fair," Phil sighs, smiling sheepishly up at him. "I don’t know your limits. You do."

It hits without warning, a flash of something old—fingertips tracing through trickles of blood on Clint's back, a voice behind him, _see?_ , blood smudging the side of his neck where the hand settles, _wasn’t too much for you after all, now was it?_ —

"You all right?" Phil asks, snapping him out of it, and Clint suddenly realizes how fast he's breathing.

"Yeah." Clint nods, pulling himself together, and rubs tiredly at his eyes. "Mostly." He doesn't want to argue anymore; he can't even remember why he wanted to pick a fight in the first place.

He's not supposed to want to run anymore.

"The short answer on the pain-thing is that I like it," Clint finds himself saying, thoughts racing too fast to catch himself. "Always have. Only certain kinds of it and only up to a point." Phil stares at him in surprise, and Clint could maybe go on, but he's found the switch to reel himself in again, and it's late, and this is enough real talk for one night. "And I really don't feel like giving the long answer right now," he says.

"Okay," Phil says, and nods, no questions asked. No more arguing. Ceasefire called.

Relieved, Clint crawls across the couch and leans down on Phil again, lays his head on Phil's chest. He's still a little unsteady from the memory pushing at him, but listening to Phil's breathing helps, little by little.

"Can I ask you one thing?" Phil's hand moves from the cushions, rests on Clint's bicep, kneading slow circles with his thumb. "You don't have to give me an answer."

"Shoot."

It takes a while for Phil to actually ask, and then Clint hears, finally: "So, in Eichsfeld..." He trails off. Clint is tempted to stop him there, but Phil said he didn't have to answer; there's no harm in at least letting him ask. "It was the only time I've ever seen you react to pain or interrogation that badly," Phil says quietly, hesitating before he finally asks: "Was it the crop?"

There's no point in hiding, and Clint finds he doesn't even want to. He sighs like he's been holding his breath for years, listening to the nervous rhythm of Phil's pulse, and nods against Phil's chest.

"Yeah," is all Clint says, and Phil keeps stroking at the muscle of Clint's arm, safe ground, without saying anything in response. 

Closing his eyes, listening to Phil's heartbeat slow, Clint wonders how many questions he just answered at once. Then he gets stuck on just listening to Phil's heartbeat for its own sake—forces away the mental image of Phil stumbling at the bullet impact—and now he _really_ can't remember why he ever wanted to fight.

Clint doesn't know how long it's been when Phil's chest rises under his cheek with a yawn, and Clint finally considers sitting up. He glances at the short hallway to the apartment's bedroom, thoughtful.

The night after the park square was the first and only time they've spent the night in the same bed, agreeing over coffee in the morning that it didn't have to be an always-thing. Tonight, when Clint stands from the couch, he nods down the hall with an asking look, and Phil follows him. They take opposite sides again, wordless.

Phil steals blankets in his sleep, curls up small and breathes too fast under the blankets, one hand poking out from the covers, fingers twitching warily. Probably a nightmare, Clint thinks, sympathetic. Clint doesn't do great at sleeping soundly away from home, either.

Clint idly thinks to himself that Phil has been staying over a lot lately, and suddenly remembers reading _Incident date June 17. Location: Agent Residence. Break-in by enemy operatives (3)_ , nearly forgotten in the midst of everything else.

It only just now hits him that they were in Phil's apartment.

Clint has always had a good visual memory; he remembers the important things. _Enemy operatives terminated, citation: excessive force (3) counts_. Ambushed in his own home and still managed to fight them off, finish the job. Clint doesn't even want to know what the excessive force citations were for.

_Agent sustained moderate to severe injuries._

Sleepless, Clint props himself up against the headboard, sitting sentry while Phil mumbles something in his sleep and clutches at the sheets until his knuckles turn white. Clint wants to lay his hand over Phil's, but—too close, remembers waking up with hands on his skin and an ache in his wrists and the taste of alcohol in his mouth—stops and pulls his knees up to his chest, starts a steady rotation watching the bedroom door, the window, the door again.

They hit him in the one place he was supposed to be able to feel safe.

"I'll keep watch," Clint murmurs to Phil, even though he's probably too deep in sleep to hear him. "No one's getting in here. Nothing's gonna hurt you."

Minutes pass and Clint stops his watch pattern to glance over at Phil; blood dots the sheets where Phil's fingernails are biting into his palm, and Clint watches red sneak through the fibers, lungs stuck and heart pounding. He can't—remembering too much tonight, blood on the sheets and dried across his back—can't look away and he can't look at the door or the windows, just pulls his arms up and tucks his head under them, grips at his hair and the sleeve of his t-shirt to hold himself together.

"We're a real mess, huh?" Clint says weakly into the curl of his legs.

Phil pulls the cocoon of blankets tighter around him in his sleep, and Clint mentally maps every route out of the apartment with his eyes closed tight against his knees.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the early days of June, the news starts circulating, and it hangs heavy in the halls of SHIELD like static. Major HYDRA resurgence. Weapons of mass destruction. SHIELD strategists putting together plans, telling no one. Clint is just as clueless as everyone else, until an unfamiliar agent shows up at his lane on the shooting range and escorts him to down a set of elevators and hallways he's never seen before. 

This is how he finds himself in the office of Nick Fury himself—small office, door behind him and to his left, no windows, ceiling tiles look impenetrable—watching a steady hand slide a thick folder across the desk to him. 

"You may have heard a thing or two about HYDRA over the watercooler recently," Fury says, waving his hand permissively at the file. 

"Not much of a watercooler guy, sir," Clint says, and pulls the file closer to his side without opening it.

"So I've heard." Fury smirks. "Seems you generally prefer to be alone," he says, and then adds, slowly and with emphasis: "...or with Agent Coulson."

Clint can't stop his nervous swallow, mouth suddenly dry. He meets Fury's good eye, uneasy, and says: "Sir?"

"How my agents spend their time off the clock is none of my business," Fury says, and Clint remembers how to breathe. "But that _is_ why you're in my office today." He pulls another file from a drawer, flips it open, and casually says: "I hear Agent Coulson had a close call last month."

Clint presses his hand down on the first folder to hide its shaking, and watches Fury idly turn pages in the file. There are photographs inside, shots of a dented bullet vest and slugs in evidence bags, photos of pale skin that Clint immediately looks away from before he can see anything.

It occurs to Clint, filed away for future consideration, that Phil's never even taken his shirt off around Clint. The time Phil got shot, all Clint saw was blood, and sure, there was Eichsfeld, but he had an undershirt on then.

What's suddenly digging at Clint is, has Phil been avoiding it for his own sake, or for Clint's?

"Frankly," Fury says, pulling Clint from his thoughts, "I don't care about Agent Coulson's emotional state. Shell-shocked or not, he's one of our best." He passes the folder across the table to Clint, opened to a page with a short list of dates.

_01.08.01_. Clint knows that one is Tuttlingen. The next entry is _06.17.01_ , the break-in at Phil's apartment.

_09.04.02_. This one Clint doesn't know.

_08.10.03_ he remembers—that time Phil got shot in Tulsa. _07.23.04,_ Eichsfeld. _05.14.06_ , the park square.

"But after this many psych flags in his file, I feel it prudent to have some extra security," Fury says evenly. "Which is where you come in."

"Security," Clint repeats, passing the folder back, and Fury's good eye meets his, deadly serious.

"I know that Coulson's head is about a hundred kinds of fucked right now," Fury says. "But this op is too important to take him off the board. _Your_ job," Fury says, pointing across the desk to Clint, "Is to get him in alive, get him out alive, and maybe bring yourself back in one piece if you can manage it. Are we clear, Agent Barton?"

"Crystal clear, sir," Clint says, nodding once.

"Take the briefing folder," Fury says, nodding to the office door. "That's for the both of you."

"Yessir," Clint says, quickly picking it up and hoping to make his escape before Fury asks any awkward questions.

He's barely put his hand on the door handle when he hears: "And Agent Barton?" Clint looks over his shoulder, wary. "We'll be speaking again when you get back, about some business unrelated to this operation," Fury says, and Clint isn't sure whether he hears a threat or a promise there.

"Yessir," he says again, and slips out of the room, walks quickly down the hall, escorted back to the main office by the same agent from before.

She turns her eyes to the file in his hands, stamped with the code number for the operation, and the way she looks at his face immediately after, the file may as well have been stamped SUICIDE MISSION. Clint puts the folder under his arm, held tight against his side, hiding the number from view all the way back to Phil's office.

The door is locked, windows dark, and the agent, whose badge Clint finally glances at—HILL, MARIA—excuses herself and vanishes around a corner before Clint can ask if she has any idea. Sighing, Clint sits down by the door, folder open across his lap, and starts reading about the HYDRA problem, surprised at the operation launch date—06.09.06. Two days.

"Thanks for the advance notice," Clint mutters to the folder. He wonders if they've even told Phil about it.

Sighing and thumping his head lightly against the wall, Clint sees _Incident Date June 17th_ on the backs of his eyelids, restlessly taps his fingers trying not to think too hard about Fury's orders.

A thought strikes him, and after a moment's consideration, Clint decides to clock out early today. He slips a note under Phil's door, then heads out, planning a small detour on the way home.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The knock on the apartment door doesn't come until nearly midnight, and when Clint opens it, he doesn't think he's ever seen Phil so exhausted in his life.

"Hey," Clint says, and nods him in. Phil steps inside, heavy on his feet. "Long day?" Clint asks, closing the door and locking it, leaning on it as he turns to look at Phil, who seems to have taken a sudden intense interest in his shoes and won't look up. "Phil?" Clint says, and Phil shakes his head.

"I should..." Phil says quietly, and looks at the door. "I should just go."

Clint swallows the _don't_ in his mouth and says, instead: "You feeling all right?"

"I'm not going to be the best company," Phil says dully, looking over at the thick folder on the coffee table. "They had me in evals for hours today. Liable to start talking too much," he sighs, and rubs at his eyes.

"So we won't talk," Clint says, shrugging. "Just come to bed."

And they both know he doesn't mean it like _that_ , but a small smile forms on Phil's mouth nonetheless, and he finally lifts his eyes from the carpet.

"Right," Phil says. He loosens his tie, and Clint remembers the photos from the file, finds himself watching Phil's hand. There's a small unconscious movement up to the top button of his shirt, a brush of his thumb over the rounded edge, and then his hand flinches away without undoing it.

"Hey, uh," Clint says, even though this probably isn't the best time to ask about this. Phil looks curiously at him, and Clint hates that there are dark circles under Phil's eyes, a downward sag to his mouth, tired and sad. He loses his nerve. "Never mind," Clint says, shrugging it off. "I'll grab you some stuff."

"Yeah," says Phil, leaning on the apartment door, and he watches the file on the coffee table like it might jump up and attack him. After a moment, he frowns, looks over his shoulder at the door, and quickly moves, leaning on the wall beside it instead, so he isn't blocking Clint from the door.

Even half out-of-it, he's still looking out for Clint, and it makes Clint's chest go tight.

Clint brings a t-shirt and sweatpants from the bottom drawer of the dresser—what they've wordlessly started to make into "Phil's drawer" and quietly added to for the past few months—and finds Phil right where he left him, staring into space with a worried crease in his forehead.

"Hey," Clint says, nudging Phil out of it, and Phil blinks into focus again. Clint holds out the clothes, managing what he hopes is a reassuring smile. "Here."

Phil reaches out and closes his fingers around the fabric, but doesn't pull it away, and Clint doesn't let go yet.

He can't _not_ think of Eichsfeld, and for an instant, he feels an urge to just start talking, tell Phil everything he was thinking after Phil handed him the shirt, before he finally pulled himself together and left the interrogation room.

But the urge subsides, and all Clint does is shift his fingers to brush against Phil's, silent. After a long moment, Phil tightens his grip and takes the bundle of clothes.

"Thanks," Phil says quietly. He leans off the wall and starts to walk away, but pauses, turns. His fingers nudge at the muscle of Clint's arm, curl around to pull him closer, and Phil leans in to press a kiss to the edge of Clint's jaw, just under his ear. "Thank you," Phil repeats against his skin, his thumb brushing deliberately against Clint's bicep.

It starts and ends in an instant, and Phil is gone and into the bathroom to change before Clint can even think to react. He looks over his shoulder at the closed bathroom door, and his heart is pounding, and he has the most ridiculous, helpless smile on his face that won't go away.

He wonders if this is what it's like to be normal, and safe—knowing someone well enough for small, effortless gestures.

And then he remembers they sleep on opposite sides of the bed and still haven't taken any clothes off in front of each other after ten months of supposed-relationship, and he thumps his head against the door with a sigh.

Phil steps out in his sleeping clothes, Clint passes him coathangers for his clothes, and Phil hangs them neatly in the closet, beside a few winter coats of Clint's, the only things he owns that are better stored in a closet than in drawers. Clint also grabs a spare quilt; Phil raises an eyebrow.

"I'm prepared for your blanket-thievery tonight," Clint says, climbing onto his side of the bed.

"Was I doing that last time?" Phil asks, looking embarrassed; Clint shrugs it off.

"No big deal."

Phil gets up onto his side, lies down, takes a while to settle in. After a moment's stillness, he frowns and says, quietly: "It _is_ a big deal."

"What is?" Clint asks, rolling over to face him. Phil looks uncomfortable, turns his head away. "What, the blanket thing?" Clint asks.

"Not about the blankets," Phil says, and rubs a hand over his face. "It's... never mind, it doesn't make any sense," he sighs.

"Yeah, gee, why bring something _weird_ into this perfectly normal relationship," Clint says dryly, and Phil gives a short huff of laughter from beside him, smiling up at the ceiling. "C'mon," Clint says, grinning like a challenge. "I memorize escape routes when I walk into a room, yours can't be that bad."

"It could," Phil says, but there's a little spark back in his eyes from the smile. He idly tightens his hands in the sheets, his expression fading into a thoughtful look. "I can't really explain it. Sometimes I wake up after nightmares and I've got sheets tangled around me like I tried to mummify myself in my sleep."

Clint flinches at the phrase "mummify myself" considering recent events, but swallows the nervous feeling and waits to see if Phil will go on.

"I guess..." Phil shrugs where he lies, seems unsure. "It just helps to feel anchored down to something, if that makes any sense."

To Clint, it really doesn't. The thought of being locked down, trapped—he has to _stop_ thinking about it.

But if it's what Phil needs, maybe Clint can try.

"Would it help if," Clint stops, breathes once to steady himself, and Phil looks curiously at him. Clint hesitantly stretches out one arm across the sheets, looks down and away from Phil's eyes, and manages: "Lemme try something. Come here for a sec." 

Phil shuffles closer, slowly, and Clint makes a small twirling gesture with his hand for Phil to turn over. Nodding, Phil puts his back to Clint, laying over Clint's arm. Exhaling slowly—this is fine, this is _Phil_ , this is nothing like the last time Clint was this close to another human being in a bedroom—Clint eases forward and curls his arm up around Phil's waist, folds the other down with it, and pulls Phil closer, until his forehead is resting against the back of Phil's neck, and Phil is pinned tightly against his front.

Clint bites his lip, closes his eyes against the softness of Phil's t-shirt, and his lungs hold his breath tight in his chest, refusing to move.

"You okay?" Phil asks, touching Clint's hand where it's white-knuckling the front of Phil's shirt, and Clint finally exhales hard and drags in a breath, chest swelling against Phil's back, warm and solid, the point of Phil's spine nudging at Clint's forehead. "Clint," Phil says softly.

"Trying," Clint says. He wants to be able to do this.

But when Phil leans away, Clint all too quickly lets his arms fall, pulls them back close to his body, and gulps in air as hard as he can. He can't. He literally _can't_ , and he hates it. Gritting his teeth, he presses his face into the pillow with a frustrated noise.

After a minute to catch his breath, he miserably looks up at Phil, who's quietly returned to his side of the bed to give Clint space.

"Told you mine were worse," Clint tries to joke, tries even less successfully to force a self-deprecating smile. He has to look away from the hurt on Phil's face, stare down at the sheets, laugh feebly at himself. "Sorry. Happy 10-month anniversary, right? Congrats to us." He's breathing too fast and talking too fast. "Ten months and we still can't even sleep together."

"Clint—" Phil starts, quiet, understanding. Like always.

Clint can't stop himself before he snaps: "How are you not _sick_ of this yet?"

"Of what?"

"This," Clint says, but the flare of frustration is fading fast, and he just feels small, and weak. "Me." It sounds pathetic, so he adds: "Waiting. Aren't you sick of waiting?"

"No," is all Phil says, and Clint hates that he means it. He's not worth all this patience. Phil can do better, Phil _is_ better, even SHIELD knows it, they're sending Clint into a high-risk op just to get Phil back alive, whatever the—"Hey," Phil says, coaxing, and Clint realizes he was spacing out, loosens his grip on the sheets.

"What if it's all for nothing?" Clint says, because he's scared Phil will talk him down from this and he suddenly needs to get it out between them. "What if we finally get there and we don't even—what if I ask you to do more than just bite me?"

Phil is silent for a long moment, breathes in, sighs out, looks like he's thinking hard about this. This is the other shoe dropping. Clint is sure of it.

"Then I'll learn," Phil finally says, and half-smiles at him. "And we'll figure it out from there."

And Clint stares at him, and can't get his brain to work, and hears himself mumble across the empty stretch of sheets: "I would kiss you right now if it wouldn't give me a panic attack."

"It's the thought that counts," Phil says without missing a beat, and it's almost a joke, close enough that Clint can't help but laugh, breathy and tired, but better than nothing.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the morning, they look over the HYDRA file with their mugs of coffee, meaning Phil relays the words while Clint blearily stares at diagrams until they're burned into his brain. 

When Clint has enough caffeine in his system to think clearly, he finally clicks into what he's looking at and remembers Fury's orders—and his errand yesterday. He figures this is as good a time as any. 

"Wait here a sec," Clint says, and Phil nods, turns a page in the folder.

He comes back with the small piece of metal clasped tightly in the fingers of one hand, and when he sits down next to Phil again, he realizes he has no idea how to tactfully start this conversation.

So, he drops all hope of tact and just goes for the obvious route, awkwardly clearing his throat and saying, "I, uh. Got you something."

"Oh." Phil looks up, surprised, and sets down his coffee cup. "Okay," he says slowly, like he's not sure what to expect.

"It's a little thing, but." Clint rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck with his free hand, the other tightening its fingers, warming the metal beneath them. He's trying not to think too hard about what he's holding or he might start to get cold feet. Just metal. Just. "Just, I remembered the file you had out last month, after..." Also, trying not to talk about that. "About the break-in."

"Right," Phil says, grimacing.

"And you said it was a bad time of year, and you've been over more, lately," Clint says, talking too much already, looking nervously down at his closed fist. "And I figured..." He's getting more anxious the more he draws this out, so he sighs, and he reaches out and lays his closed hand over Phil's, hesitates before he slowly uncurls his fingers.

When he draws his hand away, the copy of Clint's apartment key drops into Phil's palm. Phil stares down at it, mouth opening speechlessly for a long stretch of seconds.

"It's for here," Clint says, so there's no doubt.

"Clint," Phil says, hushed.

"I mean, you should probably, it's not a..." Clint wishes he'd had more coffee before doing this. "Just, advance warning before you use it would be cool, but. Yeah. That's, uh." He looks far away from Phil, swallows nervously. "That's yours."

He hears Phil set the key down on the coffee table, and then Phil's hand smooths over his arm, drawing his attention. Clint turns, trying to look calm.

"I won't make any copies," Phil promises. "You can take it back any time."

The knot in Clint's chest unravels. He slouches down over his lap, breathes out slowly, nods, says: "Yeah. Okay." In the corner of his eye, he sees Phil pick up his well-stocked keyring from the endtable beside the couch, smiling down at them as he picks up the apartment key.

"You want to hear something funny?" Phil asks, in that quiet, confidential tone people use when "funny" means "awful". Clint knows "funny". He lives in "funny".

"Shoot," Clint says, grinning already.

"I moved, after the break-in," Phil says. "The apartment I'm in now—the one you've been in—that isn't the one where it happened." Phil pauses talking, eases the new key onto the ring next to all the others. "But I never completely dropped the old one."

"Seriously?" Clint asks, looking for some tell that Phil is joking, but Phil just smiles wider, self-effacing, shakes his head.

"Yeah. SHIELD did the cleanup, smoothed it all over with the landlord, all very don't-ask, don't-tell. But I figured it's safer empty, so I never let it go. Still paying rent on it," says Phil, curling his palms around the keys. "How's _that_ for irrational?" he says, looking pleased with himself, and meets Clint's eyes.

"Pretty messed-up," Clint says, grinning huge. Messed-up on the same level as some of Clint's weirdness, even.

"Y'know the best part? I haven't been back in five years." Phil flicks through his keyring. "But I still have the keys here." He pinches two of them side by side between his fingers, holds them up from the others. "Before _and_ after the change in the locks."

It makes no sense. Clint _loves_ it.

"Think I'm gonna make up for not kissing you last night," Clint says, fingers tangling carefully in the front of Phil's shirt, and Phil leans in, opens for him, laughing quietly into his mouth.

It's always been a comfort to Clint, trading neuroses with people. He feels less alone, knowing he's not the only one with weird hang-ups and nonsensical behavior and completely fucked-up processes in his head. But knowing _Phil_ has them is like—like he's fallen into the ocean and suddenly found out he can breathe underwater. Clint may be a mess, but maybe Phil's just a little off-center, too.

And maybe, if Clint wanted to explain things more often, Phil would get it.

But isn't it just the kind of jinxed life Clint has, that when their phones buzz suddenly on the coffee table, it's SHIELD calling in an emergency all-hands-on-deck for all personnel on the HYDRA op, telling all agents that the deployment date has moved up to today.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They agree in a few small words to take separate cars, park in separate sections, are shuffled into separate briefings when they arrive at HQ, and then to the hangar in separate groups 

The flight is long, spent drilling the necessary intel into everyone's heads. Everything else drops out of Clint's head; he forgets to think about home, about people, about TV or family or old memories.

He knows his objective. He knows motion and aerodynamics. He knows the weak points of the human body, and the weak points of the particular building he's about to drop onto. He knows orders.

SHIELD puts him in the rafters and the maintenance passageways, assigned specifically to scout for Phil's—for _Coulson's_ strike team. He listens to changing team positions over his earpiece, keeps his pace even, silently downs a HYDRA officer with a single well-placed arrow to the neck.

The primary threat is a single well-staffed room between here and the strike team's target, but as time-sensitive as the mission is, Clint isn't sure the strike team will have enough leverage to clear it and still hit their objective in time. Clint doesn't know what their objective is, or what happens if they fail—it's all kind of above his pay grade—but he knows his job. More than that, he knows his value. Fury's orders are all he needs to worry about.

He puts two arrows between two ribcages before his cover is blown, and he drops into the room—three doors, one behind him, one ten feet forward to the left, one thirty feet ahead on the opposite wall, no windows, exposed ductwork at point of entry, escape routes blocked, have to clear a path, _have to clear a path_ —rolls behind cover. Thinking back, he counts 18 targets left. Up from cover, aims across the room, releases and drops back. 17. Footsteps. He wheels around, strikes with his bow, pulls an arrow and stabs down. 16.

Everything blurs, after that. He knows he's fighting, knows someone gets too close and takes an arrow to the eye for it, 15. Takes out two more from long range, 14, 13, crosses the room at some point and kicks someone unconscious, 12.

The door opens, SHIELD strike team, but they have another set of hostiles ahead, they need all their people on hand. Clint tells them to go, takes a punch and smashes the guy's head into the corner of a table. 11. Someone on the SHIELD team has to be shoved through the door by the others. Clint can't remember why that matters.

Clint does not react well to people sneaking up behind him. 10.

There is blood on his leg. In his leg. Pain, and he can't quite take a step properly when he tries. He tastes more blood, draws another arrow and there's blood on his arm when he sends it straight through someone's jugular. 9.

He doesn't understand how every time one goes down it seems there are two more rushing at—wait, blood running over one eye. Cheap move. Dizzy, something strikes the back of his head.

Floor.

He cracks his bow across someone's temple from below, 8, puts his last arrow through the underside of another's jaw, 7. There is weight on him, his hands are empty. His head is pushed down against the tile. Gloved fingers pressing on his skull, grabbing his hair, no, not okay. Not—hand in his hair, hand on his throat, and bitter and salt in his mouth, hearing _say it_ —not again. He draws his field knife and forgets himself.

6 left. 5. 4. 5? Definitely 4. 3.

Blood drenching up to his wrists, and lungs aching, room empty and three hostiles missing when he gets his bearings. Door open. Clint needs to follow them. He tells himself his leg doesn't exist. No pain there, no blood. Some in his mouth, not much of it his own. He blinks red from his eyes and walks unevenly, grabs his bow discarded on the ground and puts it to use when he catches up to one of the enemy in the corridor. 2.

One-way hallway, no doors. Exit behind him. Possible exit ahead. No windows. No weaknesses in ductwork. Can't remember why he needs an escape, but it doesn't matter. Needs to find the strike team.

Door. He pushes through—one exit behind him, no windows, solid walls—and revises his hostile count. Not 2. Closer to 9 again. Ambush, injured SHIELD personnel. He takes out the three hostiles closest to him when they aren't expecting it. 8, 7, 6 left. Someone is on the floor, heavy hands around a throat and—

Phil.

He moves, knife and nearest squishy place he can twist it in when a body appears in his line of vision, 5, breaks a nose with his elbow and leaves the knife behind in someone's femoral artery, 4. Then 3, 2, 1, because 4 dropped a gun and Clint takes his options where he can get them. 

He has only one target left now, and no arrows, and he throws himself at the last hostile with his teeth bared and blood in his hair and knocks him off of—protected agent, orders from Fury, no matter what, focus—Coulson, rolls with the hostile and takes a punch to the jaw.

There is coughing, and a weak inward wheeze, from nearby. Good. Good, and then Clint swallows blood and takes another hit, and can't see for a long moment.

Thumbs dig into his skin. They'll leave bruises for the coroner. He grasps weakly at the hostile's wrist but there's no—no way he can get out, a voice tells him, _say it_ , and he coughs out at the release of pressure, spits "fuck you" and blacks out again, and this time when he lets go Clint chokes out "please", and he will always remind Clint that he said it, that Clint wanted—no way to get out, and Clint feels only the warning of prickling and numb and cold blooming across his face, arms falling limp to the floor.

From somewhere else in the room, a gunshot. Blood drenches Clint's face and the man's fingers clench down, spasm, let go, his weight falling off of Clint. Hands are pulling Clint up from the floor. Can't tell if they're hostile or SHIELD.

He blinks his eyes open and looks over someone's shoulder, sees Phil—Coulson? Phil, _Phil_ —lying on the floor, staring wide-eyed up at the ceiling. Phil's chest rises and falls, breathing fast, fingers twitching at his side. Scared. Remembering. Not sure what.

Clint reaches, moves, and then his legs don't work. Floor again. He lunges, drags himself forward and folds down over Phil. If nothing else, they'll have to go through Clint. Mission complete, to the best of his ability.

Everything fades out.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he opens his eyes, it's to the white walls of a recovery room in SHIELD Medical—one door eight feet ahead and ten to the right, window four feet to his left, locks on these, would have to break the glass—and a satisfied-looking Nick Fury at his bedside. He processes as quickly as he can. Still alive. No threats. Fury here, Fury had orders.

"Sir," Clint slurs, tongue heavy in his mouth, lips dry.

"Seeing as you lost a lot of blood out there and you look about a stone's throw from passing out again," Fury says, "I'll be quick. You're in one piece, Coulson is in one piece, and we got what we needed to screw HYDRA out of their plans. You did good, Agent Barton."

Clint nods, once, and doesn't have anything to say to that.

"And as a reward," Fury says, with a tone of thinly-stretched patience that _dares_ Clint to object, "After Medical discharges you, I'm putting you both on a week's worth of _mandatory_ vacation, and we're all going to pretend that fits the criteria for 'supervised mental health leave', and no one is going to mention this op again. Sound good?"

"Yessir," Clint says thickly.

"Good," Fury says, sounding far-away, and Clint's eyelids weigh down again.

He sleeps, dreamless and light, and slowly starts to filter things back in. Iowa, nothing good. The circus, with its small victories. Soon after the circus. Pain. Back on the streets making one wrong move, and then SHIELD scooping him up off the streets. Fury. Coulson, coaxing Clint back in Adelaide, bleeding through Clint's fingers in Tulsa, Eichsfeld where Clint clutched Coulson's shirt to his chest and swallowed tears of relief and frustration all at once. Five dates and the touch of Phil's fingers on his arm, the taste of coffee in Phil's mouth. The park square. Phil's keyring with three, now four different apartment keys.

Clint remembers.

When he opens his eyes, he finds Phil slumped at his bedside, sprawled there with his head pillowed on one arm. There are bruises on the curve of Phil's neck, dark and threatening. Clint remembers little from the mission, but he can call this one up pretty clearly; hands around Phil's throat, and then Phil lying on the floor, unmoving, wide-eyed, long after the HYDRA agent let go.

"Phil," he says, and his throat hurts to talk, but it's enough.

Phil blinks his eyes open, unfocused for a moment in waking; they're both a little out of it right now. When he's got his bearings, he smiles wearily up at Clint, leans up from the bed.

"Hey," Phil says.

Clint wants to let him rest, but there's an urge in him that needs to ask one small thing now, while he's still sure of what he saw. He reaches up from the stiff sheets, fingers curled loose and movements sluggish, but Phil holds still with a curious look, and waits until Clint's hand nudges against the side of his neck, careful not to touch any of the bruises.

He doesn't know how to ask this, exactly, but Phil is leaning into his hand, smiling faintly, and before Clint can try, Phil says wryly: "Don't worry. Not the first time someone's tried to strangle me."

The fact that he trails off and doesn't go on, the way he averts his eyes to look at the wall, is all the answer Clint needed.

Phil's weight settles on the bedside again, his head resting against Clint's shoulder—and maybe, here, Clint thinks he can manage this much. He reaches up and lays his arm over Phil's shoulders, heavy, anchoring.

No panic, no tightness in his chest, no old ghosts in the back of his head.

Phil pillows his cheek against Clint's side, shoulders rising and falling steadily with his breathing. Clint looks at where his arm wraps around Phil; there are bandages wrapped securely along stretches of his upper arm, taped down over his shoulder, more up and down the length of his other arm. He feels more gauze on his back when he shifts, still more on his chest under the hospital gown.

_Seeing as you lost a lot of blood out there,_ Fury said, but Clint doesn't know, exactly. This could have been bad. Bad, like the park square bad.

"Sorry," Clint says, because it's only fair, and he _does_ feel guilty about it. "Wasn't thinking. Guess I got tagged pretty good back there."

Phil smiles tiredly up at Clint, and mumbles against his side: "Should've seen the other guys."

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the first few days of "vacation", they develop a sort of routine. They sleep on the edges of the bed and split a pot of coffee in the mornings, and even though they have time now, they don't bother with breakfast. Clint, still sore from the HYDRA op, mostly lies around marathonning DVDs of action movies, while Phil catches up on paperwork Fury doesn't know he snuck out of the building.

Three nights into mandatory "vacation", Clint dreams of pressure on his tongue and at the back of his throat, fingers gripping his hair, and he stumbles to the bathroom in a cold sweat. He coughs and chokes over the toilet, dry heaves when there's nothing left, aching like there's a hand inside his stomach trying to rip out his guts.

This is not a good night. He's trying, but—hand on his stomach, fingers half-numb and knuckles rubbing raw against the headboard, skin chafing on his ankles, jaw aching around the gag, and then the laugh when the edge presses against his hipbone, _struggling's gonna end badly for you_ —he presses one hand over his hip, tries to picture the scar there because scars are aftermath, scars are _after_ , not during. It's over. It's _been_ over.

This is all supposed to be far behind him by now.

The bathroom door creaks quietly open, Clint hears the water run briefly in the sink, and there's a soft settling sound beside him as Phil sits down on the bathroom floor. Reluctantly Clint looks up, and Phil, keeping comfortable distance, holds out a wet washcloth to him.

"Thanks," Clint croaks, taking it and scrubbing at his mouth. He can't stop shaking, inside and out, and the weight of the washcloth in his hand makes him want to throw it, just to feel something _hit_.

"When I got the new apartment, I couldn't sleep for a week," Phil says. He doesn't go on, but when Clint looks up, Phil seems to be looking for a sign to stop now or keep talking. Anything is better than what's in Clint's head right now.

"Yeah?" Clint leans on the wall where he sits, patiently watching Phil for more.

"Yeah," Phil says.

He takes the washcloth and stands, rinses it, wrings it out, sets it aside. Before he sits again, he fills the plastic cup beside the sink and hands the water to Clint, sitting down again. Clint drinks, swishes, spits it out into the toilet; getting the taste out helps, a little.

"Couldn't sleep in beds at all," Phil admits. "Floors, sometimes." Clint smiles, barely; he knows that feeling. "Eventually I found something that worked. Spent about a month just sleeping in the empty bathtub in the new place." 

"Huh." Clint looks over his shoulder at the tub behind him, speculative. He pushes himself up off the floor, knees wobbling beneath him; Phil raises a steadying hand if Clint needs it. "I'll try anything once," Clint says, more to himself than to Phil, and leverages one foot over the ledge, braces a hand on the wall as he climbs in.

He lies down on his side, curls his knees up, and lays his head down on the bottom of the tub, staring at the blank white wall. Walls are good. Clint likes walls.

Phil folds his arms on the bathtub ledge, looking down at him, and Clint has to admit, "This is kind of nice." He closes his eyes, breathes out slow. There's no memory here, nothing he can connect to. It's blank, and flat, and cold, and walled-off from everything else. His muscles ache from shaking, and his eyes are burning from reflex-tears of choking earlier; he feels heavy all over. He could sleep. "Can see why you like it," he mumbles.

"Want me to bring you a pillow?" Phil asks. Coming from most people, it would be a joke. Clint knows better.

"Yeah," Clint says, too tired to play tough tonight. "Sure."

Phil brings two.

Over the wall of the tub, Clint sees Phil's hand outstretched to the ceiling from where he lies, fingers curling and stretching. Clint is thinking of asking about it when Phil says, out of the blue: "I need to run an errand tomorrow." His voice is quiet, weighed-down, more than it should be for what he's saying. "You wanna come with?"

Clint has been close with Phil for a few years now, and while he may not know everything about him, he knows this is as close as Phil gets to pleading.

"Yeah," Clint says, and doesn't manage to sound casual like he wanted at all. "I'm in."

Phil doesn't say anything in response.

They fall asleep on either side of the bathtub wall, bright ceiling lights still on above them, and it's a relief when Clint dreams of the beatings in Eichsfeld instead of old times; memories of Eichsfeld, at least, will end in a rescue.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clint wakes up with stiff knees and a sore shoulder, and his mouth tastes awful, but this was still, comparatively, a decent night's sleep.

Phil is nowhere in sight when Clint looks over the tub ledge; he distantly smells coffee elsewhere in the apartment. Yawning, Clint climbs out and stumbles a few steps forward to the morning routine, meaning fifteen seconds of peeing and then about ten minutes of brushing his teeth until he can't taste vomit anymore. He's kind of used to that part.

Tossing his pillow into the bedroom, he walks out to the main room to find Phil neatly-dressed and wide awake, sitting on the couch with all of his folders from work strewn across the coffee table, idly flipping through one and nursing a cup of coffee. The clock says it's almost noon.

"Mornin'," Clint says.

Phil takes a second to look up, blinking heavily at him for a moment, then smiles tiredly and says, "Morning."

Clint joins him on the couch, glancing at the folders; he spots _Jan 08 2001_ on a tab, and sits back to stare up at the ceiling instead. Sometimes, Clint wonders what it must be like to have the most awful thing that ever happened to you laid out in perfect detail on record for anyone with high enough security clearance to see.

In the corner of his eye, Phil picks up a folder from the table, then reaches over to set it on Clint's lap. Clint looks down at it, curious.

_Case no. 22-0526-549  
ID: June 17 2001_

"You can either read that all the way through," Phil says, staring down at his coffee, "Or sit through a long, boring story later."

This is Phil's way of asking, giving Clint an escape if he needs it, but Clint isn't running away today.

"I'll take the long story," Clint says, setting the folder back on the table. Phil looks up from his mug, a soft look of surprise on his face, and Clint shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. "You probably tell it better, anyway."

Phil nods, closing the folder he was paging through, and leans back on the couch; he breathes out, slow, shoulder sagging where it rests against Clint's. Taking a chance, Clint hooks his fingers in the handle of Phil's coffee cup and steals it to take a sip. As hoped, Phil smiles, just barely.

"So, what's today's errand?" Clint asks, passing the coffee back.

Phil, looking apologetic and clearly already knowing the answer, asks: "How do you feel about surprises?" 

"Hate 'em," Clint says, then grins at Phil as he stands to go get changed. "But hey, why not." He stretches out his stiff shoulders over his head, feels light on his feet as he walks off. "I trust you."

And then he makes a beeline for the bedroom to avoid any further conversation on that topic, because these are not words he was expecting to say and maybe he's running away just a _little_ today.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They pull up to the curb in front of an apartment building Clint doesn't recognize, and Phil gets out of the car. Clint follows, but Phil doesn't even set foot on the sidewalk. He leans on the side of the car, staring up at the building, silent. Clint leans beside him, unsure of who they've come to talk to and why Phil looks scared out of his mind.

"This is a bad idea," Phil says quietly.

"Yeah, well." Swallowing his nerves and taking a chance, Clint reaches over just slightly, bumping his curled fingers against the back of Phil's hand. "You're talking to the king of bad ideas. I think we're prepared."

Phil seems to be considering this. He breathes once, deeply, and then steps away from the car, towards the building. Clint follows.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phil leads Clint up a few flights of stairs and down a hallway. Clint spends most of the walk memorizing the way they came, tracking windows and emergency exits from every angle. He hates surprises, hates surprising new building layouts more than anything, but he can tell this is important. He'll manage, for Phil.

It isn't until Phil pulls out his keys that Clint gets some idea of what they're doing here, and by then, Phil has stopped in the hall, staring down the door to apartment 801.

His fingers work slowly through his keyring until they reach two nearly identical keys, flicking one away and catching the other between his thumb and knuckle, his eyes raised to the door again. Sighing, dark circles clear under his eyes in the poor light of the hallway, Phil eases the key into the lock.

It's a long, still moment before he turns it, slowly pushes the door open without moving even an inch from where he stands. The door swings in, showing the apartment faintly lit through the windows and completely empty, and Clint can hazard a guess as to where they are. What he doesn't know is what to do about Phil.

Phil still hasn't stepped inside, hasn't even moved; he's staring, breathing a little faster, and his hands—he's digging the key into the palm of his hand.

"Phil," Clint says quietly, and touches his fingers. The tension creeps gradually out of Phil's tendons beneath Clint's palm, and Phil exhales like he's trying to purge all the air from his lungs, shoulders sinking slowly. "C'mon," Clint says, smiling feebly, "You saw what happened to the last set of HYDRA guys who tried to sneak up on me."

Phil makes a small, awful noise that isn't quite a laugh, and then he's through the door. Clint follows, closing it quietly behind them, and looks around. There are cobwebs here and there, probably spider-webs where he can't see.

"Well," Clint says, watching Phil stare up at the ceiling. "Little dusty, but not too bad for five years empty."

"Better than it looked the last time I was here." Phil, standing near a window, nudges his shoe against the carpet. "This might be a full replacement. I can't imagine any amount of cleaning would've gotten that much blood out of the carpet." Quietly, like an aside to himself more than to Clint, he says: "Or that much glass."

"That bad, huh?" Clint wipes a thick layer of dust from a countertop with his fingertips, scrubs the grime away on the leg of his jeans.

"Probably repainted this room, too," Phil says hollowly. "Definitely replaced this window."

Clint joins him in the middle of the main room, looking out the window to pretend he's not working out logistics from what Phil is saying. Window broken inward, blood on the carpet, maybe blood on the walls. He thinks— _enemy operatives terminated, citation: excessive force (3) counts, agent sustained moderate to severe injuries_ —and he wonders how much of the cleanup was for Phil, and how much was for the guys from Tuttlingen.

He stirs from his thoughts when Phil steps back from the window, leans down, and sits on the floor, idly toying with his keyring. Storytime, Clint gathers, and sits down with him.

It's a few long, silent minutes on the floor before Phil finally starts talking.

"As you can imagine, I wasn't doing great after Tuttlingen," Phil says, master of understatement. "The first few months were mandatory medical leave to recuperate, but even after they cleared me, I wound up taking voluntary leave." He runs his thumb over the teeth of a key. "I was considering quitting."

"Bet Fury didn't like that," Clint says.

"No, not so much," says Phil, one corner of his mouth quirking up. "But he's not as... he's not a machine." Phil looks over his shoulder at the apartment door. "Even made a house call once."

"Seriously?"

"Yep." Phil looks a little wistful. "Brought terrible coffee and even offered me a desk job, if I wanted it. He was worried this place wasn't safe. Might be compromised." Phil smiles a little more. "Imagine that."

"What'd you tell him?" Clint asks.

"Don't really remember. I didn't care," Phil admits. "About that, or much of anything, honestly." He leans back onto the floor, shoulders touching down, and drops his head onto the carpet, staring up at the ceiling. "Spent a lot of time right about here."

Clint flops down beside him, joining him on the carpet. Floors are nice. Clint remembers sleeping on floors a lot, until beds stopped making him feel like something was crawling around in the back of his head.

"Just lying here?" Clint flattens his back on the floor. He watches Phil's arm wander up, fingers stretching towards the ceiling and balling up tight against his palm.

"Yeah. I'd lie here and wonder— 'well, why'd _I_ make it out alive?'," Phil says. "I was still here, with all these nerves and muscles and tendons still intact for the most insignificant things, like just moving my hand, when the others all came back in pieces." He keeps his eyes fixed on the curling of his fingers. "Didn't make sense."

Clint rolls over to lay on his side, facing Phil. He wonders if he's supposed to have something to say here, but everything he can think of just sounds pathetic in his head.

"So what changed?" Clint finally asks, and Phil smiles wryly at the ceiling.

"I got a facefull of broken glass and suddenly there were three men in my living room who I hadn't seen since Tuttlingen," Phil says. "Didn't react at first. Couldn't see the point of it."

Clint needs a long moment to press his eyes shut at the thought of the park square, the two shots that luckily hit center of mass where Phil's vest could take the impact. When he looks up again, Phil is lowering his hand, resting it at the hollow of his throat, where the bruises from the HYDRA op have faded out.

"I wish I could say I had some kind of epiphany," Phil says, feeling at his neck. "That I was fading and I magically got back my will to live, or something like that. Truth is, I just had a blackout. And by the time I got my head together, I'd already..." he trails off, raises his hands into the light, runs a thumb over the knuckles of his right hand. "No skin left here. Few broken bones in my hand."

He's trusting Clint to hear the details so he doesn't have to say _I beat them to death._

"Sounds like they got you pretty good, too," Clint says, but Phil shrugs it off.

"I was conscious enough to call SHIELD," he says, like that makes it fine. "Fury actually came with the Medical team. He sat in the ambulance with me." Phil smiles a little. "Told me, 'come back to work and do something with yourself before you get so miserable you try to eat your gun'. Figured keeping me busy would keep me alive."

"So you went back?" Clint asks, like he didn't read _agent requests reinstatement_ on the same incident date in the June 17th file. Phil nods. "And you've just been... working, since?" he asks, and doesn't add, _because otherwise they find you've painted the bathroom wall with your brains?_

"Yeah," Phil says, like it all makes perfect sense.

They're quiet for a while after that, Clint unsure of what to even say about the whole thing, about Phil's headspace and the stillness of the cleaned apartment, the omission of detail except Phil's hand on his neck betraying him. 

Phil has hardly said a word about his own injuries, or about what he felt during any of this; that would be a weakness, vulnerability. These are only his failures, his wrongs. It's all objective—like Phil isn't really here, while he's talking about this. Not that Clint blames him. He wouldn't feel safe here either, in Phil's position.

And it hits Clint like a truck. _Safe_. Jesus, Phil hasn't even been able to set foot here in five years and now he's lying in the same place where they—

"Phil," Clint says, like a warning, and waits for Phil to look over before he sits up and edges closer to where Phil lies on the floor. "Gonna put my arm over you now, if that's all right."

Phil stares, blinks slowly, then says, "Yeah." And then, "Okay."

Clint settles down beside him, one arm curled over Phil's front, heavy across his shoulders. He's not expecting it when Phil rolls over, when Clint's chest is pressed to Phil's back and he's pulling Phil snug against him. Clint breathes smooth and steady against the neck of Phil's t-shirt, curling his other arm up close to Phil's head.

"S'okay," Clint breathes, because this time it is. No panic, no crawling feeling in the back of his skull. This place is about Phil's demons, not his.

Clint takes a chance, curls his legs closer to Phil's, brushes his knees to the backs of Phil's calves. He swears he can feel some of the tension leave Phil's body.

"I got you," Clint says, lets Phil's ankles hook around his leg, lets Phil's fingers curl at his wrist. If this will help, all Clint wants is to give Phil anything he can. He tips his head up, presses his lips to the back of Phil's neck, to the roots of his hair, the knob of his spine. "I gotcha," he murmurs into Phils skin.

Phil draws his legs up closer to his body and Clint moves with him, curled around him, nestling his face in between Phil's shoulder blades and hugging Phil closer with one arm, curving fingers loosely against Phil's hair with the hand of the other. He syncs his breathing to Phil's, closes his eyes against the softness of Phil's t-shirt. They settle where they lie, and Clint holds him close in the stillness of the apartment.

After long minutes, Phil's breathing wavers, and his shoulders tremble under Clint's forehead, but Phil resolutely does not make a sound, and so Clint invents a thousand excuses to pretend he doesn't notice.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hours pass on the floor of the apartment without a word between them, and still more when Clint finds himself drifting off, lulled into light sleep by Phil's long-since steadied breathing. When he wakes up again, it's dark outside, darker still in the apartment; Clint has been mapping his escape routes too well for too long to be worried about the dark.

He's still tangled around Phil, and he nudges his forehead against Phil's back, says tentatively: "Hey."

"Hey," Phil says, sounding half muffled in the floor. Clint wonders if he was out, too. "Getting late."

"We can stay's long as you need to," Clint says sleepily, patting Phil's shoulder with a heavy hand.

"No, it's," Phil pauses. "I'm fine. We can go." He leans out from under Clint's arm to sit up, then says, without urgency: "Wait, just one second."

Clint sits up, blinking in the near-pitch-black. Fingertips touch the front of his shoulder.

"Just me," Phil says softly. Clint leans into his fingers, feels them trail to his collarbone, up the side of his neck, loosely cup his jaw. "This okay?" Phil asks, voice slightly closer. Clint nods, knowing Phil can feel it. Phil's thumb brushes over Clint's bottom lip, and Clint opens his mouth just slightly, leans forward to give Phil a go-ahead to press his mouth to Clint's.

It's slow and it's sweet, and then Clint thinks of where they are and what Phil is trusting him with, and he feels like it's going to pull his heart right out of his chest.

"Thanks for today," Phil says against his lips, almost inaudible, and then he's drawing back, helping Clint up off the floor, idly muttering something about cleanup and the lease and a thorough vaccuuming. Clint nods, not really listening, still sort of stuck on before.

He follows Phil out of the building, and they lean on the side of Phil's car for a while without a word between them.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They stop for food on the drive back, splitting burgers and fries on the coffee table in Clint's apartment. After that it's separate showers, always entering and leaving the bathroom fully dressed, and by then it's more or less been silently agreed upon between them that they aren't talking about today, or the apartment, just yet.

They settle in on opposite sides of the bed, where Phil drifts off within minutes.

Clint raises his hand to stare at its silhouette against the ceiling, curling fingers in and reaching out, nerves and muscles and tendons still intact for the most insignificant things.

"Still intact," Clint breathes, like it's a revolutionary idea, and maybe it is.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They spend the last day of "supervised mental health leave" with Clint lying on the couch in his apartment, his head in Phil's lap, Phil's fingers carding idly through his hair.

Phil has some kind of cable running between the TV and his laptop, with the old 70's _Captain America and the Howling Commandos_ cartoon playing on the flatscreen. Clint isn't following it, but every time he looks up, Phil has this ridiculous smile on his face, like this is his favorite thing ever.

"Should have known you were secretly a geek," Clint says with a kind of affection that even surprises him, and leans his head against Phil's stomach to hide his involuntary grin.

"You have no idea," Phil says, half warning and half promise. "I go to San Diego Comic-Con every summer." For a second, Clint thinks it's just Phil's bone-dry sense of humor, but Phil looks almost apologetic when he goes on: "That wasn't a joke. I actually do go to Comic-Con."

"You're serious," Clint realizes, grinning like a shark. Phil Coulson is a nerd. Phil Coulson, infamous agent of SHIELD, is an honest to god Comic-Con-attending _nerd_. It's like Christmas. "Tell me you don't go in costume."

"Classified," Phil says, smirking at the TV, avoidant.

Clint ponders the whole thing for a minute while a terribly animated laser-gun battle plays out on the screen. This is simple, and Phil likes it, and the thought of Phil spending a whole weekend being this at ease is kind of blowing Clint's mind.

"You should get two tickets next year," Clint suggests, shrugging against Phil's leg.

Phil looks sheepish, and says: "What if I already got two tickets for _this_ year?" Clint looks up at him in surprise. "I haven't really had a good time to mention it," Phil says. "But it's next month. Weekend of the 20th. If it's too short-notice, you can say no."

"Yeah, 'cause you know me, my social calendar's _booked_ ," Clint says dryly, and Phil chuckles.

"Is that a yes?" Phil asks, tentative.

Clint catches his fingers at the front of Phil's shirt and smiles, brushes his lips over Phil's mouth coaxed down to meet his, and says: "Yes, Phil Coulson: Super-Nerd. I will go to Comic-Con with you."

Phil kisses him, and Clint forgets everything else and lets himself have just this one, small piece of "normal", where the strangest thing in his life isn't old memories or intimacy issues or government conspiracies, it's the fact that he's just agreed to go on a date to _Comic-Con_.

And he's kind of looking forward to it.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Slipping back into the routine at SHIELD is easy. Missing a week for injuries is commonplace, and Clint spends so much time hiding away at HQ that no one really noticed he was gone.

He's barely put his feet on the ground at the firing range when a familiar face steps in to block his path, a thin smile greeting him.

"Agent Barton," Agent Hill says mildly. "I'll be taking you to Director Fury's office for the morning."

And oh, right, Clint remembers. Almost out the door, and Fury had warned him, _We'll be speaking again when you get back._

"Right," he says, forcing himself to smile agreeably, and she seems about as eager as he feels as she leads him off the range and out to the hall. They head off into a familiar sequence of elevators and corridors he knows by heart already, every route compulsively memorized, couldn't forget if he wanted to. He wonders if SHIELD would rule him a security risk if they knew that.

For all he knows, that could be what Fury's little meeting is about.

Hill waves him into Fury's office, then stands in front of the door, blocking the only exit. Clint bristles, but he settles in across from where Fury sits, busy with a few files as usual. If Hill's positioning is Fury's way of broadcasting that he's keeping a close eye on Clint for this meeting, fine. Clint will deal.

But a moment later, Fury looks up to the door and says: "Go occupy yourself for a while, Hill. This meeting is strictly confidential." Looking aside at Clint, he adds: "This won't take long."

"Sir," Hill says readily, and leaves without hesitation.

Confidential. Hill is apparently on Fury's heels every day and personally brings people to his office, but _Clint_ gets to stay for the confidential meeting?

Clint already knows this is bad news.

"So," Fury says, setting down his folder. He rests his elbows on the desk, hands raised and folded over one another, and leans in to look intently at Clint with his good eye. Clint gives his full attention. "Last time you were here, I gave you one job. And by god, you pulled it off."

"Yessir," Clint says patiently, waiting for the rest.

"In fact, you've pulled off just about every assignment we've given you with flying colors." He glances aside at a pile of folders. "Sure, you got yourself jacked by HYDRA once, but Coulson was still filling out a recommendation for you to get your SHIELD credentials by the end of the day. It can be overlooked."

Clint nods slowly, watching Fury take a sealed, CLASSIFIED-stamped orange envelope from the top of the pile, and Clint doesn't know why his stomach drops and his heart starts hammering in his throat. Something is about to go wrong here. Praise is not a meeting. Praise is not _confidential._

"And speaking of overlooking," Fury says, setting down the envelope in front of Clint.

_3/22/1999_ , says the label.

No.

No, no, _fuck_ no, this is not happening.

"Sir," Clint grits out, isn't thinking—coaxing _just a few beers, man_ , and then metal biting into his wrists, and tasting alcohol and skin, and choking down the—isn't thinking about this. Can't. "What exactly am I looking at here?"

"This," Fury says, tapping the large CLASSIFIED stamp with the tip of his pen, "Is a little something SHIELD's cobbled together over the years. Psych evals, maybe some phone records and government databases involved. No police reports, but supposedly some medical records."

"Supposedly?" Clint can't stop himself from asking. He pinches the inside of his cheek between the points of his molars to stay quiet.

"Can't really say for sure. No agents who took part in the intel-gathering knew what it was for, and it's all only just been put together," Fury says. "I haven't even opened the final report."

Clint can't stop the sudden relieved exhale, already knowing it's given him away. Fury seems to have been expecting it; he gives Clint a second to pull himself together, to meet Fury's good eye again, before he goes on.

"Now, I'm not clueless, Barton. Maybe I know a thing or three about reading people. Maybe I got an idea about this. All I know for sure is, there was some _shit_ ," Fury says dryly, and Clint has to laugh at that, small and weak. "But until that shit starts getting people hurt or killed on your watch, it's not my problem, nor do I particularly _care_." The stone-serious look on Fury's face holds a moment longer, and then he leans back in his chair, raising his eyebrows in speculation, and goes on, ominously: "That said..."

Clint swallows hard.

"If a certain third party ever makes his presence known to you again," Fury suggests, dismissively picking up another folder to flip through, "I will _personally_ demonstrate what happens when someone messes with one my people."

There's a helpless, speechless almost-smile forming on Clint's face, but Fury seems determined not to acknowledge Clint's reaction, and blandly says, "You're free to go, Barton."

Clint stands, mumbling a quick "Sir".

At the door, he glances over his shoulder to watch Fury slip the envelope into a drawer of his desk—not into Clint's file where anyone else could read it—where Fury then turns a key to lock it in. Fury doesn't look up at him again, so Clint takes the hint and, silently grateful, leaves the office.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hill leads Clint out through the same hallways and elevators as usual.

1999\. March. Things are drifting in. _Gee, man_ Clint can't stop hearing in the back of his head, _that's rough. Come on over._

He isn't thinking about this. He focuses on Hill's footsteps on the floor, her vague shape walking ahead of him. It's pushing at him, but he grinds his teeth into the inside of his cheek, keeps his eyes downturned.

It was raining on the 20th. Raining, and Clint felt like shit, lonely and raw and looking for—

"Barton?" Hill asks, and he blinks into focus again. There's a wary look on Hill's face, a careful leaning away in her posture, that says he doesn't exactly look friendly at the moment.

"Interesting meeting," he says by way of explanation, shrugging it off. "Lot to think about."

"I'd imagine," Hill says, relaxing somewhat. "There's very little he locks me out of the room for." She keeps walking without asking questions, and Clint follows.

He hopes Phil is in his office when he gets out this time. Clint needs to... he doesn't know what he needs exactly. He wants to see Phil. He wants to know if Phil's heard of this file.

He doesn't want to talk about what's in it, except he does, except he thinks it might just dig deeper into his head if he— _Nah, none of the usual, just a few beers,_ through that easy smile, _unless you need a kick, too_ , and Clint had rolled his eyes at that, but—god, it's already fucking digging, he's having a hard time figuring how it could get worse.

Hill pauses in the last hallway, then waves Clint to the door and heads back towards Fury's office. There's no sympathetic glance, no pat on the shoulder, no kind word, but she's gone and left him in a small, closed, empty corridor by himself, and he'll take relief where he can find it.

He leans on the wall, rubbing a hand over his face, thumbing at his tired eyes like he can just push it all away and forget it. Easy, he tells himself. Just think of other things. Take it easy.

When he closes his eyes, tries to breathe slow and steady, he swears he can feel a hand on his throat.

He shoves off the wall, scrambling for the door, and barely pulls back to a fast, controlled walk when he's out in the hall with other agents. He needs to either shoot until his fingers go numb, or—not drink, no drinking, _fuck_ —find somewhere high and quiet to calm down, or talk about this.

Right now, staring at Phil's office door, he's starting to wish he'd picked the range. But zeroing out his brain on aim is a placebo. Maybe just a little would be all right. He could explain just a piece of it. Nothing about the morning of the 22nd, or any of the 21st; not even the night of the 20th, just that afternoon. He could tell Phil about just one afternoon, when he got his heart trashed by a hopeless crush and got invited over to a—not a friend, clearly never was—to someone else's place for drinks.

So he knocks, and Phil says: "Just a minute." Even the sound of his voice is starting to calm Clint, just slightly. He taps his foot and drums his fingers on his leg and tries not to look awkwardly like he's waiting, until: "All right, it's unlocked."

Clint opens the door and slips inside, finding Phil already standing. Phil's wearing his jacket, dressed down to his shirtsleeves and standing turned away from Clint, hands working at the front of the shirt. Another shirt is folded over the back of his chair, coffee-stained on one sleeve.

"Hey," Phil says over his shoulder, still buttoning up the shirt. "How was the meeting?"

He turns around with only two buttons left, and one hand pinches the shirt closed at the top, the other working to fasten it the rest of the way. Between the curves of the white fabric, Clint thinks he sees a mark of something across Phil's skin, but it might just be the light.

He's pretty sure it's not the light that's making Phil so tense in the shoulders, or putting that uneasy look on his face.

Clint has already swallowed a story about rebounds and drinks. Maybe he doesn't need to talk about this. He'll just push it down like always after he leaves, no big deal, right?

"Hey, uh," Clint is saying before he can stop himself. He leans against the door, trying to be casual. "I don't know if this is... I know I'm kinda weird about clothes sometimes, but." He stops, doesn't say, _it might be okay, if it's you._ "But y'know, don't feel like you have to go this much out of your way for me, or anything."

Phil smiles, his eyes tired and sad like he's been caught in a lie, and he says: "I'm not."

And there's Clint's answer. He nods, slowly, and rests his head back against the door.

"Was wondering if that one was you or me," he says quietly, and Phil huffs out a quiet laugh, strolling across the room to lean on the wall next to Clint.

"No, that one's all me," Phil sighs with a faint smile, sliding his tie behind his neck and under his shirt collar. "Experimental tech from Medical fixed most of the scar tissue so it wouldn't cause any problems, but what's left behind still isn't pretty."

Clint knew there were probably scars, but doesn't ask _from what, exactly?_ , because Phil never did answer his question ages ago about what happened when they put him on the table in Tuttlingen, never talks about himself when he brings up the juniors here and there.

Clint wants to say he doesn't care how bad they are, but it's obvious that Phil _does_ , so that doesn't seem like a great response. But he's also not sure he wants to make a big deal out of it. Lost, he watches Phil's hands pull the silk of the tie to the right length on either side, ready to knot it and seal off the shirt either way.

When Phil starts to fold one end over, Clint takes a chance, reaching out to touch Phil's wrist. Phil blinks at him, and Clint leans out, turns and shuffles Phil over so his back is against the door. He kind of loves that Phil glances over his shoulder, then down to the doorknob, then gives Clint an are-you-sure look.

Finding an easy smile despite his earlier nerves, Clint touches the collar of Phil's shirt by the top button, and he can see the tiny flinch in the muscles of Phil's face—eyes blinking hard for a moment and then looking away—feel him lean away against the door, hear the soft stutter in his breathing. These are all "no".

Clint straightens the collar of Phil's shirt, gathers the ends of the tie in his hands, watches the small relieved exhale Phil gives in response, the tension easing from his jaw. Okay. Clint played this one right.

"Windsor, right?" Clint asks quietly, and Phil smiles, tips his head down to watch Clint's hands.

"Yeah," Phil breathes.

Clint isn't much for neckties, but he's seen Phil do this, and Clint is good with angles. He had to be, in the circus, he's had to be in every draw of the bowstring since, and he's always been good with his fingers besides. Fold over, thread up, it's all pretty straightforward when he pictures the knot itself. Phil looks kind of impressed.

"What, my straight A's in Geometry aren't in my file?" Clint asks with a grin, pretending the mere thought of what SHIELD has on file about him isn't terrifying at the moment.

He really was always good at geometry; he likes symmetry, and simple equations, and he understands it when it's all neat and tidy, when he can draw a line through a line and come out with identical angles.

It's the other stuff in math that always gave him trouble. The abstracts, the things that weren't so straightforward, like how an equation could make the rounded downward fall or upward leap of a parabola. Or the whole idea of a curve that grows infinitely closer to a line but can never, ever touch it.

He eases the knot up into place to block off Phil's skin, thinks about a file in Nick Fury's desk that knows more about 1999 than Phil does, and thinks that maybe some of those abstracts are starting to make sense.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They barely have a few minutes to make idle small talk about coffee spills before Phil gets pulled into briefings with access on a need to know basis. Clint, with March 22nd still wound up tight around his brain (and tighter still with the comfort of Phil's closeness fast-fading) needs another option, so he spends a few hours on the range forgetting how to think.

Or, tries, anyway.

His hands waver on too many shots—remembering the tingle in his fingers from choked circulation, trembling from the exertion of struggling; he struggled exactly _once_ , and then never again the rest of the day, not even in the morning of the next when the cuffs finally—his arrow falls wide of the target, like a neon sign of _pathetic_ over his head, and then he swears he can hear it, _pathetic_ , muttered into the back of his neck.

He drops his bow, fingers red and callused, arms aching. This used to be at least an endorphin rush, enough to push his head away from everything else, but it just _hurts_ and it makes him feel like a fuck-up, and everything is just enough kinds of wrong that he swears he sees a different room when he blinks.

It's not even 6 yet, a while before they usually leave, but Clint abandons the range and stows his gear for the day. Enough is enough.

He picks a lock in a side corridor in the complex, finds ductwork and heavy wiring and finally storage, where he knows all the exits, and climbs up a high shelf to slip in between two crates.

Clint misses vacation days with Phil. He misses the awful Captain America cartoon. He misses the way it feels to be wrapped around Phil like a shield, and maybe he'll have to miss that forever, because off they went to separate sides as soon as they wound up in a bed again. Maybe that's how it's always going to be.

Maybe he's always going to be a fuck-up.

Clint curls up small and silent until the storage room clock says 7, nearly time. He slinks back into the main complex and steals medical supplies from a breakroom cabinet, enough to wrap a cut on his bow arm and a few raw spots on the fingers of his draw hand.

Everything still hurts, just _stings_ in a way that he's always hated, too-sharp and lingering—single point of pain again and again, at his jaw, his temple, wrong and there's blood in his mouth and he spits out "Acropolis!"—and his fingers are tender to the touch, he might have just screwed himself out of a day or two of good practice—then small and thready, sobbing "fuck, _stop_ ", and then leather dragging harsh over a shameful, scared tear of pain, sticking to his cheek, pushing between his teeth to muffle the hiccuping sound—and he's so sick of this, he could scream.

That, or punch a wall, but he did enough of that in '99, and SHIELD probably has the records to prove it.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They took Clint's car this morning, but when Phil meets him at the office door, Clint pushes his keys into Phil's hand instead.

"Clint," Phil starts, looking worried at the sight of him, but Clint shakes his head.

"Home first," Clint says, avoiding his eyes.

Phil closes his fingers around the keys and says steadily, "Okay." His fingers brush Clint's arm, touching a solid swell of muscle far from bandages and bruises, and his thumbprint rests there a moment, reassuring. "I'll drive." Then he nods Clint after him down the hall, pocketing the keys.

Clint focuses on the details of NYC, impossibly tall buildings and neon signs, doesn't think of a would-be city in the Midwest where he spent too much time—familiar grimy sights out a passenger window through sunglasses, under the brim of a baseball cap, the car stopping at his own apartment building and his hands shaking in his lap, flinching full body back from the arm that stretches across to open the door—way too much time after the circus, looking for the right thing in the wrong places.

"Hey," Phil says quietly, as if Clint were sleeping, and Clint realizes the car has stopped. He hastily unbuckles, opens the door, and he blinks his eyes hard in the night because for just a moment, staring up at the apartment building, this wasn't NYC at all.

"Can't," Clint hears himself saying, his back pressed to the side of the car. Not sure when he stood up or got out. "I can't."

Phil puts himself in Clint's line of vision and approaches slowly, keeps three solid feet between them, then asks: "What do you need?"

Clint doesn't know, it's cloudy and there's rain falling light on the car and he doesn't fucking _know_ , and he grinds the heel of his hand against his eyelid, green-gray bruising into his vision and it wasn't raining on the 22nd, only on the 20th, and he wants to throw up.

He's not like Phil. Phil's demons are locked in one cobwebbed apartment that used to be "home", but Clint has never even begun to understand "home", understands it even less since then, still needs escape routes in anyone else's apartment because it's the 20th and he can't feel safe in his own apartment because it's the 22nd and his whole fucking head just gets stuck in the 21st sometimes, and—

Phil's hand is warm and steady on the muscle of his arm, Phil's voice close and Phil's eyes looking concerned, and Phil asks: "Twenty-first of what?"

Clint snaps his teeth together and lines his mouth shut over them, was talking out loud, god, he hasn't been this much of a mess in months. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he closes his eyes against his palm, mutters, "Shit."

"Never mind," Phil coaxes, "Never mind." He's still thumbing slow, gentle circles against Clint's arm. Clint's brain is misfiring again—sitting in the corner of the bedroom in his old apartment—"Hey," Phil says softly—gripping bruises into his arms because everywhere else _hurt_ , no idea how this even—"Wherever you are, come on back."

Clint tries to focus on what's different. The faint sounds of the city in the rain, pain in his fingertips from firing instead of in his wrists. No pain in his back, no ache in his jaw. Phil's hand on his arm, definitely different.

Phil, standing here soaked through in the rain, with his scars and passes to Comic-Con and four apartment keys, and strong hands, and when Clint thinks of knuckles curled still against the side of his head and a grip on his hair, it's safe and steady and he's not thinking of 1999 at all.

Clint steps away from the car, up onto the curb with Phil, and he manages a deep breath, sighs it out at his shoes.

"Okay," he says, and pushes his hands into his pockets, shakes some rain from his hair. "I'm good. I'm back, I'm good." He's not, but he's better than he was, at least. The weak smile Phil is giving him, lost and still kind of reassuring, is helping in its own way. "Let's, uh." Clint gestures at the building.

"Right." Phil nods, starts to walk, but pauses, looking to Clint for something. "Do you," he points to the building, hangs back, and Clint catches on.

"Oh," he says, and feels guilty for what's coming, but if Phil is offering, he'll take it. "Walk where I can see you, all right?" he mumbles.

Phil, instead of taking offense, just gives Clint a look of understanding, and Clint wonders if this is how he looked when they talked about the park square, when all Clint could think was that he _got_ it.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phil stays in his field of vision all the way up to the apartment, leans next to the door in plain sight instead of unlocking it himself, and waits for Clint to nod him inside.

Clint lends him dry clothes and pulls on a set himself, sprawls on the couch to breathe while Phil changes in the privacy of the bathroom. Part of Clint is wondering, distantly, about the scars; the rest of him is just trying to dig roots into something.

New city, since then. New apartment. Sore muscles from new job. 2006. _2006_ , he thinks, _June_ , except he can't remember what day it is, and it's making him paranoid for reasons that don't even make sense. He's not remembering anything vividly now, at least. It's just stuck to him, under his skin, crawling around in his head.

He hears the bathroom door open and waits, shuffles aside on the couch to make room for Phil, who takes the very opposite end. For a moment, Phil looks cautious, except it all falls apart into a helpless smile he's clearly trying to clamp down on.

"What?" Clint asks, grinning involuntarily.

"Your hair," Phil says.

Clint reaches up to smooth it down, probably ridiculous-looking from the rain and changing and slouching on the cushions. He sees the barest upward motion of Phil's hand from the couch like he wants to help, the flinch back down. Clint is starting to miss the security of Phil's hands on his skin, wants any distraction or levity he can get right now.

"Here, then," Clint says, moving over to sit closer within Phil's reach. "Quit laughing and help."

"This might be beyond help," Phil chuckles. He slowly reaches up, smoothing down some damp strands against the side of Clint's head, nudging it away from his forehead. When his fingers smooth through, Clint leans into it, closes his eyes, breathes. "Rough day, huh?" Phil asks, and Clint nods.

"Yeah," he sighs. The crawling feeling under his skin is starting to calm down. "Sorry about the freakout."

"Well, I'm in no position to judge," Phil says, and Clint opens his eyes, an easy smile between them.

Phil's hand is still, makes Clint want to ask, but he's reluctant. They haven't talked about anything like this since the time Clint brought up the biting, and Clint really can't handle an argument right now.

"Hey, uh," he finds himself saying anyway, leaning in closer. "Could you," he stops, and thinks he's about to say too much, but he thinks maybe explaining will help. "Look, when you do the... with the pain thing, it helps. When my head's all fucked up, it helps to have something like that to remember, instead of the bad shit."

"Oh," is the first thing Phil says. He looks thoughtful. "That makes a kind of sense," he admits after a moment. Clint gives him a hopeful look, and Phil says, again, "Oh." And then: "Do you want me to..."

"Only if you're up for it," Clint says, leaning back a little. Phil doesn't exactly look eager.

"No, I'm fine," Phil says, and seems like he means it. "I'm fine. I'm just not... not exactly sure where your head is right now." He smiles, apologetic. "I'd rather not do anything serious until we're sure you're less..."

"Fucked-up?" Clint suggests.

"I was going to say 'out of it'," Phil says carefully, "But yours works."

"Nothing serious, then," Clint promises. Phil called this one weeks ago; he has boundaries, too. If he's not comfortable, it's off. On the other hand, Phil's just reminded Clint of exactly why he feels safe here, and they _are_ sitting very close on the couch. "Kinda tempted to kiss you, though," he says, grinning and tilting closer, though he does stop short. "If that's cool."

Phil's answer is to kiss him first, and Clint opens, pushes back, sighs contentedly at the slide of Phil's fingers through his hair. Phil's fingers curl softly at his temple, not pulling or grasping, just promising that, yeah, Phil is up for it.

This is enough, for now.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second half of June is busy. Phil is still in meetings about need-to-know stuff that Clint's security clearance can't even touch, while Clint has been pulled into a handful of meetings with Agent Sitwell about something in Russia. People hand Clint binders full of intel that have had most of their pages blanked and some vaguely-worded objectives left behind to read.

These are the weeks that remind Clint that they have separate apartments, despite all the time Phil spends at his place. They find one or two nights to drag themselves to Clint's couch and fall asleep shoulder-to-shoulder, but for the most part, SHIELD keeps them busy. Phil has all-night meetings, and sleeps on the couch in his office during the day in case of breaking intel requiring his attention; Clint is put on extra firing range hours and then thrown into sparring and advanced field training, and collapses in bed at home at night.

"What kinda shit are they getting us ready for?" Clint mumbles into Phil's sleeve one afternoon, when they've stolen an hour of mutual free time and he's sitting in front of the office couch, Phil's arm dangling over his shoulder.

"Classified," Phil yawns. "Higher-ups are playing this one close to the vest."

"Great. Russia _and_ secrets," Clint says. "Loving the sound of this."

"You sound like Fury," Phil laughs tiredly, and a month ago Clint would have taken that as an insult, but ever since their meeting, he's felt a kind of respect for the guy.

He still hasn't told Phil about any of that, though.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's almost a week before they see each other again, and that's only because Medical is forcing Phil to take twelve hours offsite for exhaustion. Clint helps him out to the car, drives him to the apartment building, and then practically carries him upstairs.

"I thought you were done trying to kill yourself with work," Clint says with a grin, laying him down on the couch.

"I would never be this obvious," Phil protests, and promptly passes out.

Clint idly flicks on a music channel on the TV, then sits up against the couch with his binder of highly censored briefings, where he's taken notes in meetings to the best of his ability. He still doesn't understand exactly what they're going to be doing out there. 

Something about Russia, and a SHIELD double agent who went missing in Minsk, and then building plans and schematics he's already memorized ten times over. All they've told him in briefings is how and where to infiltrate a compound, what he might be up against, and the many, many "logistical approaches" for every possible failure of infiltration or securing of SHIELD assets.

Phil makes a muffled noise from the couch, and Clint leans his neck back on the cushions, tilting his head to look over at Phil.

"Didn't mean stop," Phil says sleepily. "Sounds nice."

"What does?"

"Humming," Phil says, eyes still closed, lips barely moving. "Keep humming?"

Clint hadn't even realized he was. He glances at the TV; "Born To Run" is playing, and he laughs quietly to himself. He hasn't done The Boss in a long time. He used to, when he had the time alone and the energy, or could find a bar with an open mic on karaoke night. He hasn't let anyone hear him sing in years, though. 

"What, so you're a Captain America fanboy, but you like the guy who did 'Born In The USA'?" Clint asks to keep from getting stuck in his head, grinning.

"I like a balance," Phil mumbles, smiling tiredly and nudging Clint's shoulder. "Bet you do a mean Springsteen."

"Damn right." Clint glances at the screen again, where the song is winding down. "I'll hum, all right? Just sleep. Sleep already, geez. How long you been up, anyway?"

"Eighty," is Phil's reply, and then he's pliant and heavy and out like a light again.

Clint keeps going through the files over and over, hums idly to whatever comes along, and when he can't stop his eyes from blurring and seeing double on him when he tries to drill logistics into his brain, he gives up. Stretching, he nudges at Phil, wakes him carefully.

Phil stands, leans on him, and Clint helps him down the hall. He's tired himself, and loses his footing in the hall, falls shoulder-first against the wall. Phil weighs into him, making a confused noise slumped into Clint's chest, and Clint laughs quietly, clasps Phil closer to him.

"My bad," he says, and Phil raises his head, kisses him clumsy and sleepy and easy, off-center at the side of his mouth. Clint curls his arm around the back of Phil's neck and catches his mouth at the right angle, his free hand steady at the small of Phil's back.

They're both completely blown out on work, bodies slightly disconnected from brains and pawing at each other, but they can manage sloppy, lazy making out in the hallway. If Clint maybe lets his knee bend out from the wall, if Phil moans into his mouth and presses closer and grinds against him, they've been all right with this much for a while now.

And guiding Phil back to the bedroom, licking at his tongue and hard against his thigh, almost seems like something normal, like "healthy" and "supposed-to", until Clint's hands move up and all they do is straighten Phil's shirt-collar, and Phil's hands pull Clint's sweatpants up higher on his waist from where they've nudged just barely down, and they fumble and pull each other into bed only to roll apart, sprawled on separate sides to sleep.

Even separated, Clint can't help a sudden flicker of a thought in his head, jarring in a good way, and he's already opening his mouth.

"Hey, so," Clint murmurs, and waits for Phil to crack one eye open deliberately, watching. "We might be overthinking this." He's just exhausted and brainless enough to consider it, and the words won't stop going now that it's occurred to him. "What if we, y'know, baby steps?"

"Like?" Phil asks, blinking hard. He seems to be genuinely trying to pay attention to this, despite the fever and overwork. Clint loves that.

"Well, it's... nah, never mind," Clint says, and waves it off. "Sleep. We can talk later when you're not all, y'know, out of it."

He watches Phil's eyes close, his breathing settle, and he's trying not to think of the image that struck him earlier after the hallway, when Phil's mouth was slick and he rubbed hard and hot at Clint's hip, when Clint could picture, for an instant, what it must look like for Phil's own fingers to work around himself, and imagine Phil's gasps against his mouth.

Clint can't stop thinking that for all the issues with touching, with the two of them, maybe there are "logistical approaches" he hasn't considered that could make this work.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHIELD doesn't tell anyone the date of the mission, not even a ballpark figure; double agents going under in Belarus doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the home team.

Life at HQ briefly turns into what Clint has taken to calling "McCarthy-riffic" (Phil laughed) where every agent with a Russian or remotely Slavic name or accent is shunned, dodged, and/or avoided by a particularly paranoid wing of the staff. A few sharp words from Fury set the rumor mill warning everyone to knock it off, Clint learns from careful overhearing, but the whole thing has most of HQ on edge.

It's a week into July when Clint notices short-term projects being quietly taken from the schedules, preparation to divert resources; he presumes they're going to launch this as suddenly as possible.

A week after that, with a month of constant preparation, SHIELD interrupts Clint's training with a phone call, and he's off to the hangar, dropping into Agent Waynesboro's team. She's giving orders and passing out briefings; finally, _someone_ seems to know what's going on. Clint takes his objective and settles in on the flight, flipping through the building sections outlined for him.

It's all pretty standard. Infiltrate, assist in retrieval of SHIELD assets, kill or incapacitate any agents of these Advanced Idea whatever guys, and come home for a little R&R.

_Come home in time to rest up for Comic-Con,_ he finds himself thinking.

Clint's life is weird.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Their exact location is one of those need-to-know basis things he wasn't told in briefings, but wherever they are, it's cold, and flat, and there's a sheet of ice on the roof inches thick. The whole environment is more or less yelling a solid _fuck you, turn back_ at him, but Clint takes some pride in being a contrary little shit when presented with a challenge.

He uses the ice and a careful application of a grappling hook arrow to maneuver to the right position on the roof, putting the slickness of the ice to work beneath his feet. Waiting for the radio signal to move ahead, he makes short work of a few screws to save on time in case of complications in the next section.

With that handled, he catches sight of a distant, unexpected patrol near where he's pretty sure Gamma Team is supposed to drop; he gauges windspeed and wastes no time in putting an arrow through the guy's neck. One less variable to worry about, he returns to his post. So far, no problems.

After a month of prep, Clint is just _waiting_ for the moment this all comes crashing down.

He gets the go-ahead for his point of entry and slips inside through the grate he loosened, drops whisper-quiet onto a metal catwalk. Enemy agents on the floor of the ground-level storage room, ten seconds to flashbang. He puts in his earplugs and closes his eyes, counts to eleven, and draws his bow. There are already SHIELD boots on the ground and tranquilizer shots going into the enemy agents from above. He's got tranq arrows, but he's saving them for when he needs them.

Woo's team radios in with a passcode and Waynesboro cards them into the elevator, waves Clint and Agent Neville in with her. Clint wonders fleetingly if it ever gets awkward when these two are both in a room and someone says "Kate", but he dismisses it with the realization that most agents value their physical safety too much to just presume a first name-basis with either of them.

Halfway down the elevator shaft into the corridor, there's a hitch, of course. It's a scramble, but the second the lights go red, Clint and Neville are pushing Waynesboro up to the ceiling, she's making an escape route and pulling Neville up after her, and they're both hauling Clint up and out of the elevator.

He's just in time for him to secure the grappling hook arrow and latch it to his belt, then catches his steady arms around both of their waists just as the elevator drops out from beneath them. It's not on cables, just a mechanism in the walls. Which is good, because cable snaps are a nightmare.

They adapt. Woo finds them a maintenance hatch a hundred feet down. They ease through, Waynesboro and Neville finding footholds and handholds to reduce strain on Clint and the grapple line, making holds with knives and adhesive where needed. Radio chatter says the other teams are having slowdowns, too; the elevator short won't cut into the operation too badly.

Neville is first into the tunnel, then Waynesboro, then Clint. They'll have to improvise their route a little to get to the Basement 6 Labs; the detour isn't bad at first, but then they get boxed in halfway down a corridor and one of the guys has a fucking _flamethrower_ , which is when Clint stops being friendly and starts throwing anything sharp he gets his hands on.

Nine of them. One goes down with an arrow, another with a knife, three to Neville, two to Waynesboro, another with the knife, and the last one makes a brilliant tactical maneuver of trying to point his gun at Waynesboro while already bleeding from his side. Clint finishes him quick.

Next objective, next objective, he needs—

"Easy, Barton," is all Neville says, and Clint's brain has to click itself back into place.

Right. Calm. He folds his bow and wipes blood from his palms, nods them to lead down the corridor.

The rest of the trip takes them into maintenance tunnels, meaning no more meet-and-greets with enemy agents until they reach Basement 6.

Clint takes two steps away from the ductwork and into the lab, and then takes something sharp to the side of his neck and hits the floor

Things get kind of fuzzy after that.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's motion, and dragging, and he's easing into being able to see again, slowly. Might have been a tranq, except his lungs are starting to burn and his fingers feel numb.

Someone in a yellow jumpsuit is asking Waynesboro questions, except a second later there's a flash of dark fabric and a foot slamming into the back of the guy's head. Clint blinks, back on the floor and circled in unconscious enemy agents. Someone rolls him onto his back.

He's never seen the woman staring down at him before, but she's got hair like a sunset and a wry smile, and eyes too bitter for how young her face is.

She sticks him in the neck with something, and as much as he's trying to protest, there's a tingling in his fingers and he can breathe normally again. 

"Thanks, I think," he croaks.

She yanks him up onto his unsteady legs, shoves him lightly to the wall while she helps Waynesboro and Neville up. All business. He likes her already.

"How was Minsk?" Neville asks the redhead dryly, and gets a weary eye-roll in response.

"Great," she mutters.

"Barton," Waynesboro says, gesturing between them. "This is Natasha Romanoff. She's one of ours, mostly."

"Probationary," Romanoff says. "SHIELD doesn't trust me."

" _Yet_ ," Waynesboro hastens to add. "You find where they've taken the other team, and I've got a commendation with your name on it.

"Oh, goody," says Romanoff, clearly unimpressed. Still, she's turning and waving them after her. "Other holding cells are this way. I advise you to double-time it. That toxin's not friendly if it has much time to sit."

"Who else is down in the brig?" Clint asks, falling into step with Neville.

"Everyone's passed radio check-in except Beta Team," she says, frowning. "Not that I'm worried. I'm sure whatever AIM tries, Coulson's got it under—"

Clint is already running ahead.

The two AIM agents stationed at the door to the holding cell don't last long. By the time Clint's got one on the floor, Romanoff is already sweeping in to knock the other out cold, looking disinterested with the whole thing.

"I take it you've got a friend in here?" she asks while she's keying in the security code for the door.

"Sort of," Clint says. "You think they shot them up with the same stuff I had in my system?"

"Probably. AIM likes to test biochemical weapons on prisoners." She scowls at the keypad, then kneels by one guard, pulling him up by one arm. "Retinal scanner. Give me a hand."

"Got 'im." Clint helps her pull the guy up to the right height, and she positions his head in front of the scanner, pries his eyelids open. "How bad a toxin are we talking?"

"Fatal, if it's not neutralized within a few hours. I should have enough here to inject this team like I did you."

"Should?" Clint asks, just as the scanner beeps green and the door unlocks with a _click_.

Five agents lying in crumpled heaps in the cell: Sitwell, three people Clint doesn't know, and in the corner—

"Phil." Clint weaves around the fallen agents and drops next to him; Phil is still breathing, but it's shallow, labored. Behind him, Clint hears Romanoff moving among the other agents, quiet sounds of syringes and bottles clinking on the floor. Phil makes a soft, pained sound, and Clint touches his shoulder, cautious. "Hey. Hey, it's me," Clint says, voice unsteady. "We got this."

"Maybe not," says Romanoff grimly. "I may be under-budget on serum here."

"What?" Clint looks over his shoulder at her, where she's already holding up two nearly empty bottles, labeled in Cyrillic. "Who's left?"

"Your friend, and this guy," Romanoff says, gesturing to Sitwell. "I can get more, but I'd have to bust into the labs on the next floor down. Gonna take time."

"Go," Phil slurs, eyes barely opening. "Give him..." He has to stop and take a few rattling breaths; Clint squeezes his shoulder, helpless. "I'll wait."

"Phil," Clint starts to protest, but Phil shakes his head against the floor.

"S'okay," Phil says, smiling at something across the room; Clint follows Phil's eyeline to find Romanoff already pushing the needle into Sitwell's neck. When he turns back, Phil's eyes have closed again.

Waynesboro and Neville are on their way into the cell, dismantling the door lock system and looking around at the other agents, who still aren't waking up.

"Gonna be a while before this kicks in," Romanoff says, then looks at the other two. "Out of juice and still one man down. One of you feel like breaking into a lab with me?"

"I've got some experience with labs," says Waynesboro, a tired smile on her face. "Neville, Barton, can you two hold things together in here?"

"Yeah," Clint says, glancing uneasily back to Phil. "Yeah," he repeats, less sure.

"I'll get on the radio with some other teams," Neville says. "See if I can divert some pesonnel here to evacuate these guys. If AIM decides we're too deep into whatever they're testing, this place could go hot."

"Don't move him unless you have to," Romanoff says, nodding to Phil. She waves Waynesboro out with her. 

Clint, not much help with medical attention, too deep in SHIELD subterfuge to know where the teams are now or who to call in on this, and all too aware of Neville's presence to be anything but professional, sits and watches Phil struggle to breathe.

"Gonna be fine," Clint says in the quiet of the room, pretending he's saying it to Phil and not to himself. "You'd never be this obvious, right?"

Phil is starting to shiver.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few agents break from their missions to help move Beta team from the holding cell. Neville checks with Clint one last time (he'll stay here with Phil alone, he tells her, it's fine) and takes Sitwell herself, while someone radios in that they're attempting to take ventilation systems offline in case AIM tries to gas the whole place.

It's been twenty minutes since Romanoff and Waynesboro left, and Phil's been getting worse all the while. He's shaking, sweat beading on his forehead and arms heavy and limp at his sides. His breathing is still a mess, and now he's taken to mumbling, mostly incomprehensible.

"Take," Phil says, has to stop for breath. "Don't." He's quiet again.

"They'll be back soon," Clint says, not even sure if Phil can understand him through the delirium. "And I'm not going anywhere."

Phil is still going on under his breath, lips faintly moving enough for: "Stop." And then he winces, shudders hard in a near-convulsion, grits his teeth. "Doesn't, doesn't know anyth—" is all he gets out, then coughs, and blood flecks the corner of his mouth.

Clint has heard very little about Tuttlingen, but he thinks he knows this one.

"Phil," Clint says, hand on his shoulder. "Hey, keep it together. We'll get out of this."

Phil doesn't respond, just keeps shivering, his breathing turning gradually more and more panicked, He coughs again, wet and with more blood this time.

Useless here, Clint sighs and restlessly taps his fingers on the floor, trying to think of anything he can do to get Phil to calm down before he goes into some kind of fever-dream anxiety attack. He tries to focus on the rhythm of the tapping, keep himself focused so the panic doesn't hit him instead.

And then, Clint gets an idea. Not a _great_ idea (and few of Clint's ever are), but something.

He focuses the tapping, more to get his tempo than to be heard, and idly hums an old synth intro he's heard a million times, gets the feel for it. Clint knows how this one starts. _I get up in the evenin', and I ain't got nothin' to say._ He hums through the line, low and rough and he can't even do this steadily as nervous as he is, but it's better than nothing.

When he's just getting into the melody over _can't start a fire without a spark_ , he watches Phil's shoulders moving with his breathing a little slower now, worry lines easing at the edges of his eyes, his mouth.

And then, thank god, there are footsteps and here's bright red hair in the doorway, and Romanoff and Waynesboro look a little worse for the wear, but Romanoff's got the stuff and she's halfway across the room without chit-chat. She kneels next to Phil, readies the syringe, and Clint heaves a sigh of relief as she depresses the plunger, pushing the solution into Phil's system.

"We could move him now," Romanoff says. "Sounds like they've nearly got things locked down here. But there might be AIM stragglers out there. Safer to wait it out here than dragging dead weight through the halls." Clint shoots her a glare, but she meets his eyes completely unimpressed, shrugging. "Hey, your call. He won't be moving on his own for another hour or so."

Clint looks down at Phil, starting to take deeper breaths, and nods slowly.

"I'll wait here with him," Clint says. "He'd probably want to play it better safe than sorry."

"You hold things down here, then. We're heading back to the lab for samples of the toxin," Waynesboro tells him, and hands over a half-filled small bottle and a syringe. "If either of you show symptoms again, you'll want that."

With that, the two of them are gone, and Clint lets a few seconds pass out of caution before he reaches down, gathers Phil closer to rest his head in Clint's lap. He feels less feverish, seems to have caught his breath now. Clint runs his hand over Phli's forehead, his temple, short strands of hair damp with sweat under his fingers.

"Hey," Clint says, "Dunno if you're out cold or coming back in, but we got it. You're gonna be okay."

Phil makes a tired sound, still mostly out of it, but definitely alive, and improving. Improving in some places, at least; he's still muttering to himself, maybe still stuck a few years back. Clint rests his hand on Phil's head, laying heavy on Clint's thigh, and he strokes his thumb in Phil's hair, his forehead, the soft skin just behind his ear.

He starts humming again, helpless to do much else for him.

And finally, long minutes later, Phil stirs, nudges his forehead against Clint's waist and mumbles: "You're sharp."

"Yeah, forgot my pitch-pipe. Go back to sleep," Clint laughs, gently tousling Phil's hair.

"No, I'm up, I'm up," Phil says, even as he's laying his head back down. He sighs into Clint's shirt. "Sitwell all right?"

"Should be. How're _you_ feeling?"

"Ugh," is Phil's answer. He leans aside to spit blood on the floor, shaking his head. "I swear this one wasn't on purpose."

"Well, yeah," Clint says, laying his arm over Phil's shoulder and coaxing him down to rest. "Would've missed Comic-Con."

"Would've missed you," Phil says, half-muffled against Clint's leg. It's sappy, but he recovers quickly. "They _are_ four-day passes, though. With preview night. And I did already plan what panels to go to." He smirks, eyes closed. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you."

"Not really," Clint confides, and Phil laughs tiredly into his hip, then starts coughing. "Okay, no more laughing. Take ten. Breathe."

Phil goes silent after that, except for a break after a few long minutes when he says, quietly: "Really wasn't on purpose."

"I believe you." Clint steals a glance at the door; the coast is clear. "I _believe_ you, already," he repeats, leaning down, and Phil tilts up to meet him. "So don't worry about it," he says into Phil's mouth, faintly tasting blood. "Just lie down. I'll even hum some more, if you got a request."

Phil smiles against his lips, tired but whole, and says: "Anything but 'Alouette'."

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cleanup from the AIM mission isn't too bad. They stick everyone from the two captured teams in quarantine for the flight home, and for a while longer back at Medical, making sure no one hit with the AIM toxin is contagious. When Medical sends them out of the office for the day, Phil sneaks aside to his office to at least get the proper forms together for the mission before he leaves. Clint can let him micromanage for his peace of mind.

Waiting around in the hall, Clint is surprised by a tap on his shoulder, greeted with red hair and an appraising look.

"Barton, right?" Romanoff asks. He nods. "You taking the day?"

"Yeah. Medical got us with a mandatory 12-hour."

"You're still pencilled in on the range schedule," she says. "Mind if I take your hours?" He shrugs, permissive. "Good," she says, and then she's turning and walking away without another word.

He watches her go, then catches on a thought and jogs after her, calling: "Hey, Romanoff." She turns, raising an eyebrow. "I'm gonna be out a few days next week. 19th through Monday. You can grab those slots, too, if you want 'em."

She grins like he's just proven himself somewhat worthy of her approval, nods her thanks, then leaves, gone around a corner in a second.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Years from now, she'll charitably say the firing range switch is how their friendship started, but Clint will admit he liked her since she stuck him in the neck with a needle and saved him from mad scientists.

Phil will laugh at them both and ask, _what about Budapest?_ , and they'll share a horrified look and start the process of getting too drunk to remember.)

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first few days after the AIM mess are spent on debrief and incident reports. Clint still isn't a hundred percent sure what they were there for, but he's used to SHIELD being over his head and above his pay grade. He answers questions as best he can.

Mostly, Medical just wants him and Phil in to talk about the toxin. Phil was exposed to it the longest of any personnel, but since he was delirious for most of it, the reporting of symptoms generally falls to Clint.

He and Phil fall into the heavy workload routine for the half-week of cleanup. Clint stops leaving HQ except to grab a change of clothes once or twice, and brings extra for Phil; he sleeps on the couch in Phil's office when he's not in training or debriefs, and Phil takes the opposite sleeping shift, though sometimes Clint wakes up to the pleasant surprise of Phil sitting up against the couch beside him, breathing softly in sleep and holding Clint's arm heavy over his chest.

Four days pass faster than expected, though, and on the 18th, they're set to cut out early for packing, then a plane trip, and then Nerdapalooza '06—"Stop calling it that," Phil has told him at least twice a day, but he's always grinning, and usually stealing a kiss at the same time before he has to duck out to more meetings—when, of course, plans hit the smallest snag, because Medical can't resist yanking Clint in for one more set of questions about the AIM toxin.

Clint waves the staff away and promises to make the ten o'clock, then turns to Phil.

"You're better at packing anyway," Clint says. "You want to hit my place while I talk medical mysteries with these guys?"

Phil stares at him for a second, then repeats back: "Your place?"

"Yeah." Clint shrugs, trying to pretend this isn't a big deal. "You know where stuff is." Turning his eyes down to his shoes because he's getting kind of stuck on the surprised (humbled, grateful, lots of things Clint isn't ready to think about) look on Phil's face, he adds: "Gave you a key, didn't I?"

"Right," Phil says, audibly fishing his keyring out. He fiddles with it for a while, keys clinking together, and then he's crossing the room, leaning on the desk next to Clint. "I've been meaning to..." Phil starts, and trails off. He holds out his hand, clasped around something, and Clint looks over in surprise. He wasn't expecting Phil to return the key without prompting.

"Oh," he says, maybe a little disappointed, and reaches out to take it. "Sure." Phil drops a key into his hand, but even on impact, Clint notices that the shape isn't the one Clint knows. Curious, he looks up, but Phil's eyes are trained on his keyring, with three apartment keys still hanging among them.

"Apartment 801," Phil says. "Or, apartment 801, circa early June 2001," he amends, lightly jangling the keys. "Still have the newer model here."

Clint looks down at the old apartment key, cool and dense in the palm of his hand. It's well-worn and scratched, and there are old brownish stains on some of the teeth that might be blood.

He's almost, maybe, pretty sure that Phil killed one of those Tuttlingen guys with this.

"So," Phil says in his clearest 'on to the next item on this meeting's itinerary' voice, "I'll go get some packing done, if you're sure it's all right."

"Just don't pack me, like, ten pairs of socks," Clint says, grinning.

"Yes, dear," Phil says dryly, smirking back as he leans in.

Phil rests a hand on Clint's arm to telegraph his intent before he kisses him, maybe a little more open and dirty than Clint was expecting to get at work. Phil's hand gently cups the back of his head, fingers tangling lightly in his hair and drawing him closer, and, oh, Clint thinks as he's leaning Phil back against the desk and muffling a moan around Phil's tongue, they haven't really had time to themselves in a while, have they?

This is going to be a good weekend.

"See you at home," Phil breathes, teeth barely grazing Clint's bottom lip before he draws away.

And then he's straightening his tie and out the door into the hall, leaving the office to Clint for lockup.

Clint needs a minute to collect himself for perfectly normal, not even remotely innocent reasons, and despite the fact that he's got a 10 o'clock meeting about Phil almost dying last week, things are more okay than they've been in a long time.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clint gets home around noon, just as Phil is finishing zipping up a bag on the living room floor.

"Hey," Phil says, smiling up at him. There's a lightness in his smile, a looseness in his shoulders, and Clint wonders if this is as close as Phil gets to looking giddy for something. Clint is having a different kind of weird, good overwhelm right now. "You okay?" Phil asks.

"Oh." Clint realizes he's just standing in the doorway and staring. "Yeah, I uh. I'm good." He closes the door and leans back against it, hoping what he's about to say doesn't sound completely pathetic. "I'm just... not used to the 'somebody to come home to' thing," he says, trying to shrug it off.

"Yeah," Phil says, sympathy in his eyes, an edge of laughter in his voice. "This is weird."

Which reminds Clint that, except for that one guy in college who ran off to the Peace Corps and left Phil's grandmother's ring behind on the kitchen counter, there maybe hasn't _been_ anyone else, until Clint.

"Good weird," Clint agrees, and picks up the bag, shamelessly dodging that whole conversation. It's the same size bag he'd usually take on a longer job with SHIELD, small, but densely-packed."So, where to next, grab stuff at your place?"

"Actually," Phil says, giving the bedroom an amused look, "I think I might have enough here to last the weekend, at this point."

Considering "Phil's drawer" in Clint's dresser has turned into "Phil's two and half drawers", Phil is using more of the closet space than Clint, and he's keeping a toothbrush here, Clint has to admit, he's probably right.

"You should be good, yeah," Clint says, and settles in on the couch with one arm folded over his bag, old mission habits hitting him already; secret agent life has ruined them for vacations.

Phil, getting to his feet, looks like he's going to go pack up, but hesitates, frowns. He leans his keys out of his pocket, looking down at them, then uncertainly at Clint.

"When we get back on Monday," Phil starts, uneasy, and doesn't seem to have the thought together yet.

Clint puts on his best "I'm listening" look. Phil pushes the keys back into his pocket and joins Clint on the couch, seems to be working this out carefully.

"I, somewhat accidentally, have a lot of things here," Phil finally says. "And today, I may have been assuming too much, when I said... when I called your place _home_." He rubs at the back of his neck, a sheepish habit he picked up from Clint. "So, when we get home on Monday, it's your call whether I unpack everything here, or back at my place."

This is one of those moments when Clint doesn't know whether to kiss Phil for being this cautious, or kick himself for not giving enough "this is okay" signals.

Mostly, it's the kissing one.

"Well," Clint says, playing it as casual as he can, "You practically live here as it is. I don't mind." Except Phil is giving him this look like there's something serious to be talked about here, and Clint kind of gets where this is going. "Are we having a moving in talk?" he asks, not a hundred percent sure.

"We might be," Phil says, looking kind of floored himself. "I'm... not _opposed_ ," he says carefully.

"Saves on rent," Clint agrees, awkwardly, and then he can't help it, he laughs.

"What?" Phil asks, but he's grinning, too.

"No, it's," Clint needs a second, shakes his head and rubs a hand over his eyes. This is another one of those things that's new, but weird, but _good_ , and that little nagging voice in the back of his head that used to tell him to run from stuff like this hasn't said anything in a long, long time. He looks up and meets Phil's eyes, and means it when he says, easily: "You should move in."

There's that look on Phil's face again like he's relieved and honored and a hundred other things at once, and it all goes soft into a smile as he says, quietly: "Okay."

But just because this is them, and this is Clint, and he's getting that little bit of overwhelm again, Clint says: "You can even put up Captain America posters."

Phil laughs, the moment passes, and when Clint helps him pack his bag, he clears the other half of the third drawer down, dividing the dresser half-and-half for when they come home.

  
  


_Epilogue_

  
  


Clint has never been much for trips that weren't for work. Planes are standard for SHIELD, sure, but not for off-hours. Driving, he's used to. Long bus rides. Trains, sometimes. But only ever to get from Point A to Point B.

Taking a trip, actually going somewhere to do something _fun_ , with normal hotel reservations and twenty coffee places in the airport, is completely alien to him.

He mostly sticks close to Phil in the airport, not really sure how to deal with it. There's a part of him that can't relax; enemies of SHIELD are plentiful and damn near _everywhere_ , and he's not sure baseball caps and sunglasses and t-shirts are enough to keep them hidden.

The part of him that usually looks for exits is working under the usual levels, though. He can map out a route or two, and that's all he needs.

He figures, he's got Phil here to help if he needs to run from anything, right?

"This should work," Phil says, passing him a tall paper cup full of coffee. "Not exactly the sludge from the breakroom, but it tastes pretty awful."

Clint tries some; it's dark, and bitter, and it goes down easier than the SHIELD stuff, but it's still a close match. This job has ruined them for coffee, too, he thinks as he watches someone walk by with some kind of whipped foam on their cup.

"Works for me," he says, nursing his coffee. Phil sits down next to him in the chairs at the gate, and he's holding his bag in his lap, tucked under his elbows like Clint while he sits with his coffee, hyper-vigilant about supplies like any mission. "We're bad at this," Clint says, smirking around the rim of the cup.

"I usually bring a book for this part," Phil says. "I'm used to the wait."

"Bookstore's over there. You could go buy one," Clint says, shrugging.

"I could," Phil says, and nudges his shoulder against Clint's. "Or I could take watch."

Clint laughs quietly, but he knows that's exactly what this is for them—what it probably will be forever, he's accepted. So he sighs, and says, "Yeah, sounds good," with more relief than he means to.

Some of the tension eases from his head, and he wraps his hands around the cup of coffee and breathes, lets the wary part of his brain turn off for a while.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the plane boards, the whole thing turns routine; Clint is finding it easier to think of this in terms of a mission than a vacation. Board flight, sit still, plane lands, find transportation, find shelter.

The "shelter" part pulls Clint back to the actual point of the trip. The hotel is pretty nice, a manageable walk's distance from the convention center. And Clint is pretty sure he can see something easier in Phil's posture here, a kind of calm to him that isn't professional or controlled at all.

Phil checks them in, and a short walk later, they're in a tidy hotel room, way nicer than anything SHIELD's ever sprung for.

"Double beds," Clint notes. "Good call."

"Figured it was best to play it safe," Phil says, sitting on one of the beds. He flops back on it, yawning; it's the early hours of the morning, which isn't really unusual for them, but things have been busy the past few weeks.

They shower, change, but there's no unpacking. When Clint lies down, he brings his bag, arm curled reflexively around it like supplies in hostile territory; glancing over, he finds Phil hooking one of the straps of his bag around his arm, close at his side.

They catch eyes, and Phil shrugs against the mattress, smiling helplessly.

"Yeah," Clint says, grinning. "We're fucked."

Phil laughs softly, closing his eyes, and curls his fingers around the other strap on his bag.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Despite the late night, Clint finds Phil awake bright and early on Wednesday with a convention schedule and a few pads of legal paper, carefully planning out his itinerary for the weekend.

"I usually do this in advance," Phil laments, like he's failed the cult of geekery by planning last-minute. "Was slightly preoccupied this year."

"Yeah, almost dying will do that to you," Clint says, downing the rest of the (perfectly terrible) coffee from the hotel lobby. "What's on the schedule for Nerdapalooza?"

"Well, there are some panels I don't want to miss," Phil says. Clint sits down on the bed, away from the papers, and glances over them. "And there's a book signing or two I wouldn't mind waiting in line for."

"You have to plan out all that?" Clint asks, raising an eyebrow. "It's a vacation, not a deep cover mission."

"Helps to have it outlined," Phil says, making an annotation on one of the pages. He slides a schedule over to Clint. "If you see anything that looks interesting to you, I'll pencil it in. I think if I pick everything, you'll be bored out of your mind."

"Can't be that bad."

As it turns out, it kind of _is_ that bad, but Clint finds a handful of things that look pretty neat. Or, at least, bearable. He borrows one of the legal pads, scrawling a few things down on the opposite side from Phil's.

His writing has always been blocky, sort of awkward print; Phil's is all neat lines and even spacing. They look strange running down the page on either side, but there's something kind of nice about it that Clint can't exactly place.

"Huh," Phil says, grinning as he glances at Clint's list. "You want Walter Koenig's autograph?"

"You don't have to be a nerd to like Star Trek," Clint says, despite Phil's dubious look. Still, Phil marks it down on the itinerary, and he doesn't give Clint a hard time about it.

After a while, Clint notices most of Phil's selections are Captain America-focused, but between groups of them he's leaving large gaps in the schedule, blocks of hours lightly scribbled out.

"What are these for?" Clint asks, tapping one with his pen.

"Well," Phil says, and smiles expectantly at Clint. "It's rare we get time away from work. I'm not just here for the con."

It takes a second, but it kicks in for Clint.

"You don't have to ditch your trip just to hang around me," Clint says, pretending to be intensely interested in the schedule in front of him.

At which point the schedules, the pages, and the pens shuffle together and hit the floor in a neat pile, and then he's got fingers catching at the sleeve of his t-shirt, coaxing.

"But, your call," Clint decides with a grin, and meets Phil's mouth with his.

Phil falls back on the bed, Clint following to lean over him, arms braced on either side of Phil's head and knees brushing Phil's hip on one side.

And this is all simple, and normal, and safe, and when Phil's fingernails scrape soft through the short hair at the back of Clint's head, Clint can't keep from making a needy sound against his lips. Phil's fingers thread through, curl without grasping.

"Want me to—"

"Yeah," Clint breathes. Phil's fingers tense, take hold, and then he's making this little _twisting_ motion when he tugs. "Holy, _yes_ ," Clint gasps, his whole body arching to push his head towards Phil's hand.

And a thought occurs to him, in the midst of the _good yes more_ sparking through his brain.

"Y'know what it is?" Clint says, and Phil's hand is out of his hair, touching his cheek. He leans into it, grinning lazily. "It's _fun_ , is what this is. Just feels good to me. Am I allowed to just answer all the questions with that?"

"Good, huh?" Phil repeats back, a little breathless, and there's a kind of wonder in his eyes, maybe even relief. "So I don't have to—this doesn't have to be," he sighs, and he draws Clint down to kiss him, soft and steady for a moment. "I was afraid that for this to work—" kissing Clint again, clearly buying time to find the words, and Clint lets him. "—I had to like that it _hurt_ you."

"Nah, that's not how it works," Clint says, and he rolls over to avoid any distractions for this, lies on his back next to Phil, heads sharing the pillow. "It's a context thing. Certain kinds of pain, certain situation, certain person—" he nudges Phil's side for emphasis. "—and it just feels good." Because it might need reiterating, he adds: "And seriously, you don't have to like the pain thing. Sadism's not a job requirement."

"Right," Phil says, still sounding relieved. Clint is starting to wish he'd laid out the basics a lot sooner, for both their sakes.

"But you're allowed to like that _I_ like it, is the thing," Clint goes on. He smiles up at the ceiling. "And I do. Always did." He thinks of the file in Fury's desk, Phil's quiet question about the crop weeks ago. He can give a little, here. Broadly. "Look, there was a... some shit happened, a few years back. And I think you've guessed it involved stuff like this."

"I had a feeling," Phil admits.

"Yeah," Clint says, his own voice sounding heavy in his ears just from this much. He's not dwelling on this right now, though. "But even if you liked the pain thing, it wouldn't make you that guy." And he's going out on a limb, here, but he's trusting his instincts on this one. "Doesn't make you those guys from Tuttlingen, either."

He's not sure at all by the time it's out of his mouth, so he glances over to check Phil's reaction, maybe take it back, but Phil's got this look on his face like Clint just explained the whole purpose of the universe to him.

"And I, uh," Clint says, because he probably should have started with this. "After the other thing went bad, I obviously wouldn't even ask you for something like this if I didn't..." He's going to regret how sappy this sounds in a minute. "Y'know. Trust you."

Phil is quiet for long seconds, still staring up at the ceiling in thought, and Clint is starting to worry he's said too much.

Finally, Phil says, still not looking at him: "I would really like to do something useful like hug you, but I don't know how well that's going to go over."

"Yeah, sorry. Apparently I got a thing about beds and hugging," Clint says, grinning. "We could always roll off onto the floor."

That finally breaks the mood, and Phil laughs, shaking his head. Clint thumps his head against Phil's shoulder, chuckling into his sleeve, because—yeah, this is just how things are.

And the world didn't open up and swallow Clint for telling, if vaguely, an old story. Things might be all right here.

"We're a mess," Phil says, but it's affectionate. He sighs, laughter easing. "A thing about beds and hugging. I'll make a mental note."

"I dunno, you got a lot of paper down there," Clint says, exaggerately leaning over to look at the dropped legal pads. "Could make an actual note, if you wanted."

Phil looks thoughtful for a few long seconds.

Then he says: "Actually, that's not a bad idea."

"What, really?"

"Well," Phil says, leaning his arm down to retrieve one of the legal pads. He flips to a blank page, voice distant like he's thinking hard about this. "Knowing what sets each other off would cut down on the worries about guessing wrong." Clint remembers that conversation. "Reduce the odds of actual _harm_ , pain aside.

Clint kind of loves that he's already making that distinction.

"So we're gonna do paperwork?" Clint asks, and he's skeptical while he'saying it, except when he considers the way Phil does paperwork, does logistics, it really may not be a bad idea at all. "Are we about to make a file on our sex life?"

"Can we call it a sex life yet?" Phil muses, more to the ceiling than to Clint.

"What, do we have to meet a benchmark? Touch dicks: gold star?" Clint asks, and Phil snickers, mouth shut tight like he's trying to be mature and not laugh. "I'm serious, I think getting cozy with mutual boners is good enough."

"Well, we've certainly done that." Phil's smile weakens a little. "We'd probably have more points if I could get my shirt off."

"Yeah, well. I got the clothes thing, wouldn't worry about it." Clint picks up a pen from the bedside table and holds it out. "That's two for the list right there."

Phil looks amused, but he's taking the pen and he's making a column on the left with his name, neatly writing _shirt on_ beneath it. He passes the pad to Clint, watching his face, like a question, like he's not sure Clint is seriously in on this.

Clint sits up, takes the legal pad, and rests it on his leg, settling in. He makes his column on the right, printing: _clothes on_. Phil sits up with him to read it.

"So," Clint says, looking at their entries. "Do we just start from here, and go until we either run out or you have to go to Preview Thing?"

"It's not until tonight," Phil says distractedly, taking the legal pad. "I wouldn't worry about it." He picks up the pen and writes: _no leaving marks._ He pauses, then adds: _yet?_

Clint takes back the list when offered, puts down: _no covering mouth (except with yours)_. He smiles at it while he's writing it, feeling a little weird trying to put this stuff down so it makes sense. Phil just nods, like it's fine, and takes back the list.

_No throat pressure_ , Phil writes.

Clint copies it exactly into his own column.

Phil reads, and frowns, and then sits silently with it for a while, but he doesn't make Clint explain, and then he borrows back the pen and starts writing his next line down.

The first list starts out as a "what not to do", but in the hours that follow, other pages starts building. Phil lets Clint name all the pages, smiling at the phrasing; there's a list for guaranteed safe things, for "almost always fine" things, "good, but ask first" things, "could give it a try" things, "not willing to try this yet" things.

Slowly, lopsided in their handwriting on either side, the pages start to fill.

Phil doesn't make it to preview night.

**Author's Note:**

> so here's the trigger warning section for specifics:
> 
> \- backstory stuff involving partner abuse (physical/sexual/psychological) specifically sexual assault in a BDSM-Gone-Wrong context, incl. ignoring of safeword, ignoring of limits, preventing safewording out altogether, use of gag/flogging/forced penetration, and especially asphyxiation/choking stuff. if any of that stuff hits specific Bad zones for you please be careful. things are written sort of stream-of-consciousness, disjointed flashbacks or referenced in conversation, and not as actual in progress events, 
> 
> \- present trauma stuff includes dissociation, hypervigilance (obsessively mentally mapping escape routes), suicidal behavior/ideation, a lot of stuff in-POV during panic/PTSD episodes, people dealing with having their worst traumas potentially known to their workplace, that about sums up what we got. just yk, you know yourself so if reading certain stuff puts you in a Place just be mindful of how you're doing and if it's gonna exacerbate anything you got going on, be safe, that's a wrap. 
> 
> this will be my last ao3 upload on this account.


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